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COMPENDIUF 



OF 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 




DC^ 



COMPENDIUM 



ENGLISH LITERATUEE, 



CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED, 



SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE 



WILLIAM COWPER. 

CONSISTING OF 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE AUTHORS, CHOICE SELECTIONS 

FROM THEIR WORKS, WITH NOTES, EXPLANATORY AND 

ILLUSTRATIVE, AND DIRECTING TO THE BEST 

EDITIONS AND TO VARIOUS CRITICISMS. 

DESIGNED AS A TEXT-BOOE FOK THE HIGHEST CLASSES IN SCHOOLS AND 
ACADEMIES, AS WELL AS FOR PRIYATE HEADING. 

BY 

/ 

CHARLES DEXTER "CLEVELAND. 

y^^^'^'^'- " ■*■■ 4 .« 

I ^^ 

PHIlIdELI^HIA: 

E. C. AND J. BIDDLE, No. 6 SOUTH FIFTH STREET. 

1847. 



-f^ 



8 



.C^ 




Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1847, by 

CHARLES DEXTER CLEVELAND, 

in the Clerk's OfSce of the District Court for the Eastern District of 
Pennsylvania. 



PHILADELPHIA : 
T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS, PKINTERS. 



PEEFACE 



The following work is, perhaps, as much the offspring of necessityj 
as of a love for the subject. Very shortly after I had opened my 
school for Young Ladies, in this city, in 1834, I felt greatly the want 
of a book that would give my first or " finishing" class a knowledge 
of the best English Poets and Prose writers, arranged in a chronolo- 
gical order to show the progress of the language, with short accounts 
of the lives of the authors themselves and of the works they had 
written, accompanied by such notes as would direct the reader to the 
best editions of the different writers, to the various criticisms upon 
them in reviews or elsewhere, and to other books upon kindred sub- 
jects, that might be read with profit. But such a work I could not find. 
Accordingly, in 1838, 1 printed, solely for the use of my pupils, a small 
syllabus, consisting merely of the names of most of the English 
authors, with the dates of their birth and death, arranged under the 
different sovereigns. From this I delivered a series of lectures, from 
time to time, until I had progressed through the reign of Elizabeth, 
when, about four years ago, I concluded to prepare, as soon as I could, 
a work like the present. But numerous avocations have prevented 
me from completing my design until this time. 

T have felt it to be a sort of duty, in justice to myself, thus to give 
this brief history of my book, lest it might be supposed by some, that 
I had taken the hint of it from Chambers'" ^' Cyclopedia of English 
Literature," recently republished in this country. On the contrary, it 
will be seen, that, years before that work was published, I had ma- 
tured in my mind the plan of this, and was gathering materials for it. 



VI PREFACE. 

Besides, the "Cyclopedia," excellent as it is, is on apian different 
from my own, and is far too voluminous for the object for which the 
" Compendium" is intended; yet the two. so far from conflicting with 
each other, may be mutual aids; for I should hope that my own work 
would but give the reader a greater zest to extend his inquiries into 
the same most interesting subject—a subject so rich in everything 
that can refine the taste, enlarge the understanding, and improve the 
heart. 

In making selections for my work, I have not been prevented from 
inserting many pieces, because the same had been selected by others 
before me; not presuming myself to be wiser, or to have a better taste 
than hundreds who have gleaned from the same rich field. Hence, 
while much, I believe, will here be found that, to the generality of 
readers, will be new, some extracts may also be found that will be 
familiar. But, like old friends, their re-appearance, I hope, will be 
hailed with pleasure. Besides, I have endeavored constantly to bear 
in mind this truth, which even those engaged in education may some- 
times forget, that what is well known and familiar to us, will be new 
to every successive generation; and therefore that all books of selec- 
tions designed for them, should contain a portion of such pieces as all 
persons of any pretensions to taste have united to admire. Milton's 
"Invocation to Light," Pope's "Messiah," Goldsmith's "Village Pas- 
tor," and Gray's "Elegy" illustrate my meaning. 

But if any one should not see in my work some favorite piece of 
his own, let him reflect that I could not put in every thing, and be 
assured that often, very often I have felt no litfle pain in being com- 
pelled, from the narrow limits of the " Compendium," to reject pieces 
of great beauty and merit. Let him but propose to himself, too, the 
task of bringing the beauties of English Literature into a duodecimo 
of seven hundred pages, and I am sure he will be little inclined to 
censure my deficiencies. I say not this to deprecate criticism. On 
the contrary I desire it, and shall be glad to have all the faults in 
the work, both of omission and commission, faithfully pointed out. 



PREFACE. VU 

In the preparation and execution of tiiis work, I hope I have not 
been unmindful of the great, the solemn responsibility that rests upon 
him who is preparing a book that may be the means of forming the 
taste, directing the judgment, and moulding the opinions of thousands 
of the rising generation, and I hope and pray that it may contain not 
one line, either of original or selected matter, which may have, in the 
least degree, an injurious tendency upon a single mind; not one line 
which, "dying, 1 might wish to blot;" but that, on the contrary, it 
may render good service to the cause of sound education ] that it may 
exert, wherever read, a wholesome moral influence ; and that it may 
impress upon the minds of the young, such principles as are essential 
to their well being and happiness for time and for eternity ; such prin- 
ciples as are in harmony with everlasting truth. 

CHARLES DEXTER CLEVELAND. 

Philadelphia, November 2d, 1847. 

Note. — It was my intention to subjoin a list of the works which I have con- 
sulted in the preparation of the " Compendium," which might serve as a sort 
of "list of books for reading ;" but as these are all, I believe, mentioned in 
the notes, the repetition is deemed unnecessary. C. D. C. 



CONTENTS. 



Sm John Mandeviile, 17 

From the Prologue, 18 

The Nails and Feet of the Chinese, 1 9 
The Giraffe, 20 

The Spherical Form of the Earth, 20 

JoHIf WiCLIF, 21 

Lines from Wordsworth (note), 22 

Apology for Translating the Scrip- 
tures, 23 

The AU-sufRciency of the Scrip- 
tures, 24 

Wiclif 's Translation of Psalm ii., 24 
" " Matthew v., 25 

John Babbotjr, 26 

Apostrophe to Freedom, 26 

Modern Paraphrase of the same, 27 

Geoffrt Chaucer, 27 
Dante, Petrarch, and Boccacio 

(note), 27 
The Decameron of Boccacio(note), 

28 

The Prologue, 29 

The Knight and the Squire, 29 

The Monk, 30 

The Clerk, 31 

The Wife, 31 

The Parson, 32 

Troilus and Creseida, 33 

Romaunt of the Rose, 33 

The House of Fame, 33 

The Flower and the Leaf, 34 

William Caxton, 35 

History of Printing (note), 35 — 36 
Origin of the name of Albion, 36 

William Dunbar, 38 

The Thistle and the Rose, 38 



The Dance of the Seven Sins, 38 
Envy, 39 

No Treasure without Gladness, 39 

Sir Thomas More, 40 

The Utopia, 41 

Lines from Cowper (note), 42 

Queen's Speech to the Lords, 43 

His Letter to his Wife, 44 

William Ttndale, 45 

Various Translations of the Bible, 45 
From Tyndale's Translation, 47 

Sir Thomas Wtatt, 48 

The Lover complaineth of the 

unkindness of his Love, 48 

The Lover prayeth not to be Dis- 
dained, Refused, Mistrusted, 
nor Forsaken, 50 

A Description of such a one as 
he would Love, 50 

Of the Mean and Sure Estate, 51 

Of his Return from Spain, 51 

Henrt Howard, Earl of Sur- 
rey, 51 
Prisoner in Windsor, 53 
Comparison between Surrey and 

Wyatt (note), 53 

The Frailty of Beauty, 55 

In Praise of his Lady-Love, 55 

Description of Spring, 56 

Of the Happy Life, and the Means 
to attain it, 57 

Hugh Latimer, 57 

A Yeoman of Henry VH.'s Time, 58 
Meaning of "Martyr" (note), 58 
Examination before the Bishops, 59 
Cause and Effect, 60 



CONTENTS. 



Sib JoHis^ Cheke, 61 

Lines from Milton (note), 61 

From the " Hurt of Sedition," 61 

JoHN^ Hetwood, 63 

The Drama, 63 

Miracle Plays, 63 

Moral Plays, 63 

Interludes, 64 

From the Four P's, 64 

ROGEB AsCHAM, 66 

From the " Toxophilus," 67 

" " « School Master," 69 

Sir Phtxip Sidnet, 71 

From the " Arcadia," 73 

Description of a Stag-hunt, 74 

Prayer of Pamela, 75 

From the " Defence of Poesy," 76 
Philosopher, Historian, and Poet, 

compared, 77 

In Praise of Poesy, 78 

Christopher Marlowe, 80 

A Passionate Shepherd to his 
Love, ' 80 

Robert Sottth-weli, 81 

Lines from J. G. Whittier (note), 81 

Times go by Turns, 82 

Scorn not the Least, 82 

Love's Servile Lot, 83 

Content and Rich, 84 

Edmujs-d Spenser, 85 
Remarks on the " Faerie Queene," 

86—87 
The Knight and Una, 88 
Una followed by the Lion, 90 
Description of Prince Arthur, 92 
" " Belphoebe, 94 
The Care of Angels over Men, 95 
The Seasons, 96 
Heavenly Love, 97 
Remarks of Sir James Mackin- 
tosh and HazHtt, 97 
Remarks of Campbell, 98 

Richard Hooker, 98 

His " Ecclesiastical Polity," 98 

His Letter to the Archbishop, 99 



The Necessity and Majesty of 

Law, 100 

Sudden Death not Desirable, 101 

The Excellency of the Psalms, 102 

UxcERTAiiir Authors, 103 

The Soul's Errand, 103 

English Minstrelsy, 105 

Account of the Minstrels, 105 

Chevy Chase, 106 

The Two Corbies, 109 

The Demon Lover, 110 

Translation of the Bible, 112 
Account of the same, 112 — 113 

Thomas Sackville, 114 

From the " Ferrex and Porrex," 114 
The " Mirror of Magistrates," 1 14 
Allegorical Characters in Hell, 115 
Description of the Duke of Buck- 
ingham, 118 



William. Shakspeare, 


118 


From " The Merchant of Ve- 




nice,"— the Three Caskets, 


120 


The Seven Ages, 


125 


Othello's Defence, 


126 


Clarence's Dream, 


128 


Fall of Cardinal Wolsey, 


129 


Queen Mab, 


132 


Life and Death Weighed, 


133 


Mercy, 


133 


The Uses of Adversity, 


134 


Sir Walter Raleigh, 


134 


Xerxes Passing the Hellespont, 


135 


The Battle of Thermopylge, 


136 


The Power of Death, 


137 


The Nymph's Reply to the Pas- 




sionate Shepherd, 


138 


The Silent Lover, 


139 


Last Letter to his Wife, 


140 


Samuel Daniel, 


141 


Equanimity, 


142 


Richard the Second, 


143 


Giles Fletcher, 


144 


Redemption, 


144 



CONTENTS. 



XI 



Fkais-cis Bacon, 145 

Account of his various Works, 

146—147 
Diverse Objects of Men to gain 

Knowledge, 147 

Preservation of Knowledge, 148 
Pleasure of Knowledge, 148 

The Uses of Knowledge, 149 

Studies, 150 

The End of Knowledge, 151 

Ben Jonson", 151 

Cupid, 152 

His Prose Works, 153 

Directions for Writing well, 153 

Thomas Cakew, 1 54 

Epitaph on the Lady Mary 

Villers, 155 

Persuasions to Love, 155 

Pleasure, 156 



George Sandts, 
The Lamentation of David, 



156 
156 



William Chillingworth, 158 

The Necessity of an Unadulte- 
rated Scripture, 158 
Scripture alone the Rule of Faith, 1 59 
The Sin of Duelling, 160 
Extract from Dr. Beecher's Ser- 
mon on the same (note), 160 

Francis Qxjarles, 162 

Whither Shall I Flv ? 163 

The World, 163 

Mercy tempering Justice, 164 

Hope in God, 165 

His Prose Works, 165 

Extracts from the Enchiridion, 165 

William Drttmmond, 167 

The Praise of a Solitary Life, 167 

On Sleep, 167 

On Spring, 168 

Imitation by Pope (note), 169 

Richard Crashaw, 169 

Lines on a Prayer Book, 169 

Phineas Fletcher, 171 

The Purple Island, 171 

The Shepherd's Life, 172 



Envy, 173 

Decay of Human Greatness, 173 

Joseph Hall, 174 

The Anxious Client and Rapa- 
cious Lawyer, 175 
The Domestic Tutor, 175 
The Rustic wishing to turn Sol- 
dier, 175 
The Fashionable but Famished 

Beau, 176 

His Prose Works, 177 
Upon occasion of a Red-breast 

coming into his Chamber, 177 
Upon hearing Music by Night, 177 
Upon the Sight of a great Li- 
brary, 178 
The Happy Man, 178 
Lines from Burns (note), 179 
Remarks of Walton on Content 

(note), 179 
The Pleasure of Study and Con- 
templation, 180 

Thomas Fuller, 181 

Miscellaneous Aphorisms, 182 

The Good Schoolmaster, 183 

The Good Wife, 185 
Burton's Six Reasons in favor of 

Marriage (note), 185 
The Good Sea-Captain, 185 
Remarks on Slavery, by Mon- 
tagu (note), 186 
On Travelling, 186 
Remarks of Roger Ascham 

(note), 187 

Of Memory, 187 

Robert Herrick, 188 

To Daffodils, 189 

To Primroses, 189 

To Blossoms, 190 

How Heart's Ease first came, 190 

The Captived Bee, 191 

The Night-Piece, to Julia, 191 

The Primrose, 192 

Upon a Child that died, 192 

Epitaph upon a Child, 192 

Upon a Maid, 192 

Jeremy Taylor, 193 

On Prayer, 194 

On Toleration, 194 



Xll 



CONTENTS. 



On Content, 195 

Lines from Burns and Thomsou 

(note), 196 

On Covetousness, 196 

Adversity, 197 

Lines from Shakspeare (note), 197 
On the Miseries of a Man's Life, 197 
What is Life, 198 

The Story of the Ephesian Wo- 
man, 199 



Abraham: Cowley, 


200 


Gold, 


201 


The Grasshopper, 


202 


His Prose Works, 


202 


On « Myself," 


203 



The Pleasures of a Country Life, 205 

On Greatness, 206 

John Milton, 207 

Scene from Comus, 209 

From "L Allegro," 211 

From " II Penseroso," 213 

Upon the Nightingale (note), 214 

Sonnet on his Blindness, 215 

To Cyriack Skinner, 215 
Samson's Lamentation for his 

Blindness, 216 

Invocation to Light, 217 

Eve's Account of her Creation, 218 
Satan's Speech when thrust 

down to Hell, 219 
Description of Satan, 220 
Evening in Paradise, 221 
Hymn on the Nativity, 223 
Prose Works, 225 
Church Government against Pre- 
lacy, 226 
Liberty of the Press, 230 
England and London, 231 
Reform, 231 
Power of Truth, 232 
The Poet's Morning, 233 
Milton's Habits (note), 233 

Sir Matthew Hale, 233 
Lord Erskine's Encomium 

(note), 234 

Cowper's do (note), 234 

Regulating Conversation, 235 

Isaac Barrow, 238 

Reward of Bounty to the Poor, 239 



The Structure of the Body a 

Proof of Divine Wisdom, 240 
What is Wit, 241 

Knowledge a Source of Delight, 242 

Andrew Maryell, 243 

Bacon on Knowledge (note), 243 
Doleful Evils of the Press, 244 

Parody on Charles II.'s Speeches, 245 
Friendship of Marvell and Mil- 
ton, 246 
His Poetry, — The Emigrants, 247 
The Nymph complaining for the 

death of her Fawn, 248 

Samuel Butler, 249 
Macaulay's Character of the Pu- 
ritans (note), 250 
Description of Hudibras, 251 
His Logic, 252 
His Mathematics, 253 
His Metaphysics, 253 
His Religion, 254 
His Apparel, 254 
His Sword, Dagger and Pistols, 255 
His Prose,— A Small Poet, 256 

Sir Thomas Browne, 257 

Thoughts on Death and Immor- 

talitv, 258 

The Student, 260 

Pride, 261 

Sohloquies of the Old Philoso- 
pher and the Young Lady 
(note), 261 

His Latinized English, 262 

IzAAK Walton, 263 

Dialogue — Falconer, 263 

Piscator, 265 

Exhortation to Contentment, 267 

Edmund Waller, 268 

Panegyric to my Lord Protector, 269 
Beauty and the Rose compared, 271 

John Buntan, 271 

Cowper's Lines to Bunyan, 271 

His various Works, 274 

Macaulay's Eulogy (note), 274 

Christian in Doubting Castle, 275 

Robert Barclay, 280 

Practical Religion (note), 281 



CONTENTS. 



XUl 



Dedication to Charles Second, 282 
Against Titles of Honor, 283 

Sir K.OBEHT Botle, 285 

The Study of Natural Philoso- 
phy favorable to Religion, 286 

Discrimination necessary in 

Reading the Scriptures, 288 

Richard Baxter, 289 | 

Experience of Human Character, 290 j 
Desire of Approbation, 291 j 

Character of Sir Matthew Hale, 291 j 
Observance of the Sabbath in ! 

Charles Second's Reign, 293 
Theological Controversies, 294 

JoHIf TiEtOTSOIf, 294 

False and True Pleasure, 295 

Evidence of a Creator in the 

Structure of the World, 296 

Education, 296 

Sir "Wiieiam Temple, 297 

Pleasures of a Rural Life, 298 

Homer and Virgil compared, 299 

John Drtdex, 300 

Character of Shaftesbury, 302 

On JVIilton, 304 

Veni Creator Spiritus, 304 
Enjoyment of the Present Hour 

recommended, 305 

Shakspeare, 306 

Beaumont and Fletcher, 307 

Ben Jonson, 308 

Chaucer and Cowley, 309 

Spenser and Milton, 310 

John Locke, 312 

Practice and Habit, 314 

Injudicious Haste in Study, 316 

Importance of Moral Education, 316 
The Right Improvement of His- 
tory, 317 
The Schoolmaster (note"), 317 
Orthodoxy and Heresy, 318 
Duty of Preserving Health, 319 

Robert South, 319 

The Will for the Deed, 320 

Covetousness, 321 

The Glory of the Clergy, 322 



The Pleasures of Amusement 

and Industry compared, 322 

The Eye of Conscience, 323 

Thomas Parkeie, 323 

Story, on which the " Hermit " 

is founded (note), 324 

Hymn to Contentment, 325 

William Pekj«-, 327 

Preface to his "Maxims," 328 

Advice to his Children, 330 

Joseph Addison, 333 
On Shakspeare, 336 
Bickerstaff 's Learning Fencmg, 336 
On the Use of the Fan, 337 
The Lover's Leap, 340 
Dissection of a Beau's Head, 342 
« « Coquette's Heart, 345 
Vision of Mirza, 348 
Omnipresence of the Deity, 352 
Reflections in Westminster Ab- 
bey, 354 
An Hymn, 355 
An Ode, 356 
Paraphrase of Psalm xxiii., 357 
Cato meditating Suicide, 358 

Matthew Prior, 359 

An Epitaph, 359 

Lady Rachel Russell, 360 

Letter to Dr. Fitzwilliam, 361 

Sir Richard Steele, 362 

The Dream, 364 

The Death of his Father, 365 

The Strength of True Love, 366 

The Blind Restored to Sight, 367 

Daniel De Foe, 370 

Robinson Crusoe discovers the 

Foot-Print, 372 

John Gat, 375 

The Bull and the Mastiff, 376 

The Poet and the Rose, 377 

The Hare and Many Friends, 377 

Barton Booth, 379 

Sweet are the Charms of Her I 

Love, 379 



XIV 



CONTENTS. 



Henry Grove, 380 

The true Art of Enjoying Life, 381 
On Novelty, 382 



Thomas Tickeli, 
On the Death of Addison, 



384 
385 



Richard Bektlet, 387 

Authority of Reason in Rehgion, 388 

William Somerville, 389 

Beginning of a Fox Hunt, 389 

Lines Addressed to Addison, 390 

JojfATHAis" Swift, 391 

Difference between the Wliigs 
and Tories of England 
(note), 392 
Extract from the " Drapier's Let- 
ters," 393 
Country Hospitality, 394 
The Spider and the Bee, 396 
Transubstantiation, 398 
Beaucis and Philemon, 400 

Alexantier Pope, 404 

The Messiah, 406 

The Toilet, 409 

Description of Belinda and the 

Sylphs, and Ariel's Address, 409 
The Dying Christian, 412 

Epitaph on Mrs. Corbet, 413 

Couplets from the Essay on Criti- 
cism, 413 
Shakspeare, 414 
Homer and Virgil compared, 415 

RoRERT Blair, 416 

The Grave, 417 

Death-divided Friendships, 417 

Death, the Good Man's path to 

Heaven, 418 

James TnoMsoif, 419 

Summer Evening, 420 

The various Sufferings in Winter, 42 1 
Moral of the Seasons, 422 

Hymn on the Seasons, 423 

From the Castle of Indolence, 425 



Isaac Watts, 
A Summer Evening 
The Rose, 



428 
430 
430 



Few Happy Matches, 430 

The Prospect of Heaven, 432 

Looking Upward, 432 

Seeking a divine Calm in a rest- 
less World, 433 
Launching into Eternity, 433 
General Directions relating to 

our Ideas, 434 

Rules for Improvement by Con- 
versation, 436 

COXTERS MlDDLETON, 439 

Cicero offers himself to the Bar, 440 
Close of Cicero's Consulship, 441 
Character of Pompey, 443 

HE35-RT St. Johx Bolis^g- 

BROKE, 445 

Absurdities of Useless Learning, 446 
The Character of Queen Eliza- 
beth, 448 
The World our Country, 448 
Fortune not to be trusted, 449 

Philip Doddridge, 450 

Letter to a Female Friend, 451 

Letter to his Wife, 452 

The true Use of Learning, 453 

Worldly Cares, 453 

The Sabbath, 454 

Self-examuiation, 455 

Entering into Covenant, 455 

Joseph Btjtler, 456 

Christianity a Scheme imper- 
fectly comprehended, 458 

George Berkeley, 462 

Poetry, 463 

South Sea Scheme (note), 462 

National Luxury the Road to 

National Ruin, 465 



William Collijts, 


467 


Ode to Fear, 


468 


Ode to Evenmg, 


470 


The Passions, 


472 


Ode written in 1746, 


474 


Ode to Mercy, 


475 


On the Death of Thomson, 


475 


Samuel Richardsoh', 


477 


Moral Sentiments, 


478 



CONTENTS. 



XV 



Thomas Sherlock, 481 

Different Ends of Religion and 

Morality, 481 

The Information the Gospel 

gives most desirable, 482 

Christ and Mahomet contrasted, 484 



Taste, 
Conclusion, 



521 
522 



JoHiT Byhom:, 

A Pastoral, 

The Three Black Crows, 

William King, 

Virgil, 

A Repartee, 

Singular Conduct, 

William Sheitstone, 
The School Mistress, 

Robert Dodslet, 

Emulation, 

Temperance, 

Anger, 

Woman, 

Rich and Poor, 

Benevolence, 



485 
485 

487 

488 
488 
490 
491 

493 
494 

496 
497 
498 
499 
500 
501 
503 

503 



Ed-ward Young, 

Introduction to the Night 
Thoughts, the Value of 
Time, &c. 505 
Man's Resolutions to Reform, 508 
Life and Death, 508 
Dying Rich, 509 
Society Necessary for Happiness, 509 
Insufficiency of Genius and Sta- 
tion without Virtue, 509 
The Love of Praise, 511 
The Wedded Wit, 511 
The Languid Lady, 511 

William Falcoker, 512 

The Vessel going to Pieces, 
Death of Albert the Com- 
mander, 513 

Mark Akenside, 515 
Introduction. The subject pro- 
posed, 517 
Man's Immortal Aspirations, 518 
Cause of our Pleasure in Beauty, 520 
Superiority of Moral Beauty, 521 



Thomas Gray, 524 

The Progress of Poetry, 526 

The Bard, 529 

Elegy written in a Country 



Church-yard, 



536 



John Hawkesworth, 540 

Value of Familiar Letters, 541 

Danger of Relapse after Pur- 
poses of Amendment, 542 

How far the Precept to Love 

our Enemies is Practicable, 543 

Carazan, the Merchant of Bag- 
dad, 547 

A Lesson from the Flight of 

Time, 550 

Hymn, 550 



Oliver Goldsmith, 


551 


Italy, 


554 


France, 


556 


Britain, 


557 


The Village Preacher, 


558 


Elegy on Mrs. Blaize, 


559 


Life Endeared by Age, 


560 


A City Nigbt Piece, 


563 



Story of Alcander and Septimius, 564 
The Poet, 568 

David Hume, 568 

On Delicacy of Taste, 569 

On Simplicity and Refinement, 570 

The Middle Station of Life, 570 

Sir William Blackstone, 572 

Origin and Right of Property, 573 
The Lawyer's Farewell to his 

Muse, 575 

Samuel Johnson, 578 

Lines of Garrick (note), 579 

Letter to Lord Chesterfield, 580 

The Voyage of Life, 583 
Knowledge to be accommodated 

to the Purposes of Life, 587 
Right Improvement of Time, 588 
Duty of Forgiveness, 590 
Solitude not Desirable, 592 
From the Preface to his Diction- 
ary, 593 



XVI 



CONTENTS. 



Reflections on Landing at lona, 594 

Picture of the Miseries of War, 595 
From his Preface to Shakspeare, 595 

The Fate of Poverty, 598 

Cardinal Wolsey, 599 

Charles XII., 599 

Objects of Petition, 600 

Folly of Procrastination, 600 
Lines on the Death of Dr. Levett, 601 

Robert Lowth, 602 

Advantages and Pleasures of 

Poetry, 602 

Utility of Poetry (by Leigh 

Hvmt, (note), 603 

Thomas Waktoin-, 607 

The Hamlet, an Ode, 608 

The Crusade, an Ode, 609 

William Robektsokt, 611 

Resignation of Charles V,, 612 

Columbus discovering America, 615 

Ebwahd Gibbon, 617 

His Birth, 617 

" Education, 617 

« First Love, 618 

" Interview with his Father, 620 

" Publication of his History, 620 

" Completion of his History, 622 
Invention and Use of Gunpowder, 623 

Sir William Jones, 624 

Remarks on the Scriptures, 626 

An Ode, 626 

Robert Burns, 627 

Professor Wilson's Remarks, 629 

To a Mountain Daisy, 630 

To Mary in Heaven, 631 

The Beadsman of Nithside, 632 

The Cotter's Saturday Night, 634 

Man was made to Mourn, 638 

Edmund Burke, 640 
Comparison between Burke and 

Johnson (note), 642 



Terror a Source of the Subhme, 643 
Sympathy a Source of the Sub- 
lime, 644 
Uncertainty a Source of the Sub- 
lime, 645 
Difficulty advantageous, 645 
Revolutions of National Gran- 
deur, 646 
Character of Junius, 646 
Speech to the Electors of Bris- 
tol, 647 
The Queen of France, 648 
Chivalry, what 1 (note), 648 
Lamentation over his Son, 649 

Letters of Junius, 650 

Dedication to the EngUsh Nation, 653 
To Sir William Draper, 655 

To The Duke of Grafton, 656 

To The Duke of Bedford, 657 

To The King, 660 

The King's Honor that of the 

People, 663 

Encomium on Lord Chatham, 664 
To Lord Ca,mden, 664 

William Cowper, 665 

Providence of God in all Things, 669 

True Philosophy, 670 

The Geologist and Cosmologist, 670 

War— Slavery, 671 
Happy Effects of Emancipation 

(note), 672 

Knowledge and Wisdom, 673 

Mercy to Animals, 673 

War, 674 

Liberty, 674 

Pleasures of a Winter Evening, 674 

To Mary, 677 

Preaching versus Practice, 679 

John Bunyan, 679 

Sonnet to Wm. Wilberforce, 680 

Lines on his Mother's Picture, 680 

The Cast-Away, 682 

His Prose, 683 

On a Particular Providence, 684 

Questions for Examination, 687 



COMPENDIUM 



ENGLISH LITERATURE 



SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE. 1300-1371. 

The first prose writer which occurs in the annals of English Literature, 
is the ancient and renowned traveller, Sir John Mandeville. He was born 
at St. Albans,' about the year 1300. Stimulated by an unconquerable curi- 
osity to see foreign countries, he departed from England in J 322, and con- 
tinued abroad for thirty-four years ; during which time his person and 
appearance had so changed, that, on his return, his friends, who had sup- 
posed him dead, did not know him. But so fixed was his habit of roving, 
that he set out a second time from his own country, and died at Leige (in 
Belgium) in the year 1371. John Bale, in his catalogue of British writers, 
gives him the following fine character, as translated by Hakluyt. 

"John Mandevil Enight, borne in the Towne of S. Albans, was so well 
given to the study of Learning from his childhood, that he seemed to plant 
a good part of his felicitie in the same : for he supposed, that the honour of 
his Birth would nothing availe him, except he could render the same more 
honourable, by his knowledge in good letters. Having therefore well 
grounded himself in Religion, by reading the Scriptures, he applied his 
Studies to the Art of Physicke, a Profession worthy a noble Wit : but 
amongst other things, he was ravished with a mightie desire to see the 
greater parts of the World, as Asia & Africa. Having therefore provided 
all things necessary for his journey, he departed from his Countrey in the 
Yeere of Christ 1322; and, as another Ulysses, returned home, after the 
space of thirty-four yeeres, & was then knowen to a very fewe. In the 
time of his Travaile he was in Scythia, the greate & lesse Armenia, 
Egypt, both Libyas, Arabia, Syria, Media, Mesopotamia, Persia, Chaldaea, 
Greece, Illyrium, Tartaric, & divers other Kingdomes of the World : & 
having gotten by this meanes the knowledge of the Languages, least so 
many & great varieties, & things miraculous, whereof himself had bene an 
eie witnes, should perish in oblivion, he committed his whole Travell of 
thirty-four yeeres to writing, in three divers tongues, English, French, & 
Latine." 

^ A town of Hertfordshirp, about twenty miles N. of London. 

2 



18 MANDEVILLE. [eDWARD III. 

John Mandeville was indeed a remarkable man ; and though England 
has since distinguished herself above all other nations for the number and 
the character of her voyagers and travellers, who, for the sake of enlarging 
the bounds of geographical knowledge, have pushed their way into every 
part of the world, yet, considering the time and circumstances in which he 
wrote, to none must Sir John Mandeville give place. We must bear con- 
tinually in mind that he wrote nearly five hundred years ago — one hundred 
years before printing was introduced into England — in an age of great igno- 
rance, and eager for the marvellous and the wonderful in relation to other 
lands so little known. That he has told many ridiculous stories is no doubt 
true ;i but such he generally prefaces with " thei seyn," or " men seyn but 
I have not sene it." But if we charge these against him, we must also give 
him credit for those accounts which, for a long time, rested on his single 
and unsupported authority, but which later discoveries and inquiries have 
abundantly confirmed ; — such as the cultivation of pepper — the burning of 
widows on the funeral pile of their husbands — the trees which bear wool, 
of which clothing is made — the carrier pigeons — the gymnosophists — the 
Chinese predilection for small feet — the artificial egg hatching in Egypt — 
the south pole star, and other astronomical appearances, from which he 
argues for the spherical form of the earth — the crocodile — the hippopota- 
mus — the giraffe, and many other singular productions of nature. " His 
book," says an elegant writer, 2 "is to an Englishman doubly valuable, as 
establishing the title of his country to claim as its own, the first example of 
the liberal and independent gentleman, travelling over the world in the dis- 
interested pursuit of knowledge ; unsullied in his reputation, and honored 
and respected wherever he went for his talents and personal accomplish- 
ments." 



FROM THE PROLOGUE. 3 

" And for als moche'^ as it is longe tyme passed, that ther 
was no generalle Passage ne Vyage over the See ; and many 
Men desiren for to here speke of the holy Lond, and han^ 
thereof gret Solace and Comfort; I John Maundevylle, Knyght, 
alle be it I be not worthi, that was born in Englond, in the 

' In No. 254 of the Tatler, Addison has ridiculed, with infinite humor, the 
propensities of Sir John towards the marvellous. 

- See a very interesting article on Sir John Mandeville's travels in the 
Retrospective Review, vol. iii. p. 269. 

^ In printing these extracts from Mandeville, the edition of J. 0. Halliwell, 
London, 1839, published from a manuscript about three hundred years old, has 
been carefully followed. The language, therefore, is such as our ancestors 
used more than three centuries ago, and it is here given not only as a curi- 
osity, but from the belief that it will give more real pleasure, and convey a 
much better idea of the progress which the English language has since made, 
than if it were modernised. Before the art of printing was discovered there 
was no settled method of spelling ; the same word, therefore, will be found 
spelled different ways. * As much. ^ Have. 



1327-1377.] MANDEVILLE. 19 

Town of Seynt Albones, passed the See, in the Zeer of our 
Lord Jesu Crist MCCCXXII, in the Day of Seynt Michelle; 
and hidre toi have been longe tyme over the See, and have 
seyn and gon thorghe manye dyverse Londes, and many Pro- 
vynces and Kingdomes and lies, and have passed thorghe Tar- 
tarye, Percye, Ermonye^ the litylle and the grete ; • thorghe 
Lybye, Caldee and a gret partie of Ethiope; thorghe Ama- 
zoyne, Inde the lasse and the more, a gret partie ; and thorghe 
out many othere lies, that ben abouten Inde ; where dwellen 
many dyverse Folkes, and of dyverse Maneres and Lawes, and 
of dyverse Schappes^ of men. Of whiche Londes and lies, I 
schalle speke more pleynly hereaftre. And I schalle devise 
zou sum partie of thinges that there ben, whan time schalle 
ben, aftre it may best come to my mynde ; and specyally for 
hem, that wylle and are in purpos for to visite the Holy Citee 
of Jerusalem, and the holy Places that are thereaboute. And 
I schalle telle the Weye, that thei schulle holden thidre. For 
I have often tymes passed and ryden^ the way, with gode 
Companye of many Lordes: God be thonked. 

" And zee schulle^ undirstonde, that I have put this Boke 
out of Latyn into Frensche, and translated it azens out of 
Frensche into Englyssche, that every Man of my Nacioun 
may undirstonde it. But Lordes and Knyghtes and othere 
noble and worthi Men, that conne" Latyn but litylle, and han 
ben bezonde the See, knowen and undirstonden, zif I erre in 
devisynge, for forzetynge,^ or elles f that thei mowe'° redresse 
it and amende it. For thinges passed out of longe tyme from 
a Mannes mynde or from his syght, turnen sone into forzet- 
ynge : Because that Mynde of Man ne may not ben compre- 
hended ne witheholden, for the Freeltee of Mankynde." 



THE LONG NAILS AND LITTLE FEET OF THE CHINESE. 

"For the Noblesse of that Contree is to have longe Nayles, 
and to make hem groM^en alle M^eys to ben as longe as men 
may. And there been manye in that Contree, that han hire'^ 
Nayles so longe, that thei envyronne alle the Hond : and that 
is a gret Noblesse. And the Noblesse of the Women, is for 
to haven smale Feet and litille : and therfore anon as thei ben 
born, they leet'^ bynde hire Feet so streyte, that thei may not 
growen half as nature wolde." 

^ Hitherto. - Armenia. => Shapes. * Ridden. ^ Should. * Again. 
'• Know. * Forgetting. » Else. '" May. " Their. ^- Let. 



20 MANDEVILLE. [rICHARD II. 



THE GIRAFFE. 

"In Arabye, theiben clept Gerfauntz ; that is a Best pomelee 
or spotted; that is but a litylle more highe, than is a Stede :' 
but he hathe the Necke a 20 Cubytes long: and his Croup and 
his Tayl is as of an Hert : and he may loken over a gret highe 
Hous."^ 

THE SPHERICAL FORM OF THE EARTH.^ 

"In thatLond,'^ ne in many othere bezonde that, no man may 
see the Sterre transmontane,^ that is clept the Sterre of the See, 
that is unmevable, and that is toward the Northe, that we clepen 
the Lode Sterre. e But men seen another Sterre, the contrarie 
to him, that is toward the Southe, that is clept' Antartyk. xVnd 
right as the Schip men taken here Avys^ here, and governe hem 
be the Lode Sterre, right so don Schip men bezonde the par- 
ties, be the Sterre of the Southe, the whiche Sterre apperethe 
not to us. And this Sterre, that is toward the Northe, that wee 
clepen the Lode Sterre, ne apperethe not to hem. For whiche 
cause, men may wel perceyve, that the Lond and the See ben 
of rownde schapp and forme. For the partie of the Firmament 
schewethe in o^ Contree, that schewethe not in another Con- 
tree. And men may well preven be experience and sotyle'° 
compassement of Wytt, that zif a man fond passages be Schip- 
pes, that wolde go to serchen the AYorld, men myghte go be 
Schippe alle aboute the World, and aboven and benethen. And 
zif I hadde had Companye and Schippynge, for to go more 
bezonde, I trowe'^ wel in certeyn, that wee scholde have seen 
alle the roundnesse of the Firmament alle aboute. 

"But how it semethe to symple men unlerned, that men ne 
mowe'^ not go undre the Erthe, and also that men scholde falle 
toward the Hevene, from undre ! But that may not be, upon 
lesse,'^ than w^ee mowe falle toward Hevene, fro the Erthe, 
where wee ben. For fro what partie of the Erthe, that men 

^ Horse. - The houses of the east, but one story. 

3 T'lis, it seems to me, is a most curious and remarkable passage, for we 
must remember that it was v.-ritten nearly one liundred and fifty years before 
the discovery of America. It proves, beyond a doubt, that Mandeville had a 
distinct idea of the rotundity of the earth, and probably of the New World, 
and that, if he had had the means, he would undoubtedly have anticipated by 
more than a century the brilliant discovery of Columbus. 

^ Africa. ^ xhe pole star. « That is, the star to which the loadstone or 
magnet points. " Called. ^ Advice. ^ One. " Subtle. " Think. -^ May 
not, that is, cannot. " Unless. 



1377-1399.] wicLiF. 21 

duelle,^ outlier aboven or benethen, it semethe alweys to hem 
that duellen, that thei gon more righte than ony other folk. 
And righte as it semethe to us, that thei ben nndre us, righte 
so it semethe hem, that wee ben undre hem. For zif a man 
myghte falle fro the Erthe unto the Firmament ; be grettere 
resoun, the Erthe and the See, that ben so grete and so hevy, 
scholde fallen to the Firmament: but that may not be." 



JOHN WICLIF. 1324—1384. 

John Wiclif, the Morning Star of the Beformation, " that Englishman," 
(to use the words of Milton,) " honored of God to be the first Preacher of 
a general Reformation to all Europe," was born in the little village of 
Wiclif, near Richmond, in the northern part of Yorkshire, about the year 
1324. Where he received the rudiments of his education is not known, but 
at a suitable age he entered the University of Oxford, where he soon dis- 
tinguished himself, not only in the scholastic philosophy of the times, in 
which he surpassed all his cotemporaries, but also in the study and interpre- 
tation of the Sacred Scriptures ; so that he acquired the title of Evangelical 
or Gospel Doctor. In 1361 he was promoted to the headship of Canterbury 
Hall, and soon after, from witnessing the ecclesiastical corruptions which 
so extensively prevailed, he began to attack, without discrimination, both in 
his sermons and other pieces, not only the whole body of Monks, but also 
the encroachments and tyranny of the church of Rome. 

He had now fairly entered into that arena which he was to quit only with 
his life. To enter, however, into the particulars of his eventful life — the 
continued and most bitter persecutions he ever experienced at the hands of 
ecclesiastical power — his fearless and manly defences of himself — the bulls 
issued against him by the Pope — his appearance before august convocations 
to answer for himself, touching the same — his providential escapes from the 
snares set for him by his enemies — to enter into these and the numerous 
other incidents of his most active life, would be quite impracticable in the 
limited space prescribed for these biographical sketches. The reader is 
therefore referred to the excellent works mentioned below. 2 

Milton, in his Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, thus 
remarks : " Had it not been for the obstinate perverseness of our Prelates 
against the divine and admirable spirit of Wiclif, to suppress him as a schis- 

^ Dwell, live. 

2 The Life and Opinions of John Wiclif, by Robert Vaughan, 8vo. The 
Life of Wiclif, by Professor Charles Webb Le Bas, London, 12mo. The 
Life of Wiclif, with an appendix and list of his works, 12mo., Edinburg, 
1S26. Xo author's name is given to this. Of these, I must prefer the 
work of Professor Le Bas. If none of these is accessible, there is the little 
work of Professor Pond, entitled " Wiclif and his Times,-' published by 
the American Sunday School Union. 



22 WICLIF. [rICHARD II. 

matic or innovator, perhaps neither the Bohemian Husse and Jerome, no, 
nor the name of Luther or of Calvin had ever been known." And Milton 
is undoubtedly right. Far be it from us to say anything that would de- 
tract, in the least degree, from the great merits of the great German Re- 
former. The name of Luther is endeared to the whole Protestant world, 
and will ever be cherished as long as holy zeal, and moral courage, and 
untiring ardor in the best of causes, have an advocate on earth. But in 
some respects Wiclif claims precedence of Luther. We must ever bear in 
mind that he was one hundred years before him, and that he lived in a darker 
night of ignorance, and when the Papal power was in its fullest strength. 
Wiclif, too, stood almost alone ; for though countenanced by the mother of 
the king, and by the powerful Duke of Lancaster, yet he met with no sup- 
port that deserved to be compared with that retinue of powerful patronage 
which gave effect to the exertions of Luther. *' Allowing, however," (says 
Professor Le Bas,) "if we must, to Luther, the highest niche in this 
sacred department of the Temple of Renown, I know not who can be chosen 
to fill the next, if it shall be denied to Wiclif." 

" In all stages of society, those unquestionably deserve the highest praise, 
who outstep the rest of their cotemporaries ; who rise up in solitary majesty 
amidst a host of prejudices and errors, combating intrepidly on one side, 
though assailed and weakened on another. The merit consists in setting 
the example ; in exhibiting a pattern after which others may work. It is 
easy to follow where there is one to lead ; but to be the first to strike out 
into a new and untried way, in whatever state of society it may be found, 
marks a genius above the common order. Such men are entitled to ever- 
lasting gratitude." Burnet' s English Prose Writers. 

Wichf died in the year 1384 of a stroke of the palsy, continuing to the 
very end of life to labor with increasing zeal in that holy cause, to which he 
had devoted himself in his earlier years. His inveterate enemies, the papal 
clergy, betrayed an indecent joy at his death, and the council of Constance, 
thirty years after, decreed that his remains should be disinterred and scat- 
tered. The order v/as obeyed, and what were supposed to be the ashes of 
Wiclif were cast into an adjoining brook, one of the branches of the Avon. 
"And thus," says old Fuller, the historian, "this brook did convey his 
ashes into the Avon ; the Avon into the Severn ; the Severn into the narrow 
sea ; and this into the wide ocean. And so the ashes of Wiclif are the 
emblem of his doctrine. It is now dispersed all over the world." ^ 

^ Wordsworth has thus beautifully expressed this thought. 



Wiclif is disinhumed ; 



Yea — his dry bones to ashes are consumed. 

And flung into the brook that travels near : 

Forthwith, that ancient voice which streams can hear, 

Thus speaks — (that voice which walks upon the wind. 

Though seldom heard by busy human kind :; 

' As thou these ashes, little brook, wilt bear 

Into the Avon — Avon to the tide 

Of Severn — Severn to the narrow seas — 



1377-1399.] wicLiF. 23 

The number of the writings of Widif still extant, though very many were 
burnt both before and after his death by order of the Pope, is truly astonish- 
ing. Most of these now exist in manuscript, in the pubUe hbraries in Eng- 
land and Ireland, and some in the Imperial Library at Vienna. His great 
work was the translation of the Scriptures, and to him belongs the high 
honor of having given to the Enghsh nation the first translation of the entire 
Scriptures in their mother tongue, which he made, not from the original 
languages, the Hebrew and GrBek, but from the Latin Vulgate. The fol- 
lowing are his reasons for this great undertaking: :^ 



WICLIF S APOLOGY. 

" Oh Lord God ! sithin^ at the beginning of faith, so many 
men translated into Latin, and to great profit of Latin men ; let 
one simple creature of God translate into English, for profit of 
Englishmen. For, if worldly clerks look well their chronicles 
and books, they shouldenfind, that Bede translated the Bible, and 
expounded much in Saxon, that was English, either^ common 
language of this land, in his time. And not only Bede, but 
king Alfred, that founded Oxenford, translated in his last days, 
the beginning of the Psalter into Saxon, and would more, if he 
had lived longer. Also Frenchmen, Bemers^ and Britons, han^ 
the Bible and other books of devotion and exposition translated 
into their mother language. Why shoulden not Englishmen 
have the same in their mother language ? I cannot wit.e No, 
but for falseness and negligence of clerks,'^ either for^ our peo- 
ple is not worthy to have so great grace and gift of God, in 
pain of their old sins. 

Into main ocean they — this deed accurst 

An emblem yields to friends and enemies, 

How the bold teacher's doctrine, sr.nctified 

By truth, shall spread throughout the world dispersed.' " 

^ He received, of course, abuse without measure from the priests, for this 
noble labor, which he completed in 13S0. The following is but a mild speci- 
men of Papal rage. It is from one Henry Knyghton, a cotemporary priest. 

"This master John Wiclif translated out of Latin into English, "the Gospel 
which Christ had entrusted with the clergy and doctors of the church, that 
they might minister it to the laity and weaker sort, according to the exigency 
of times, and their several occasions. So that by this means the Gospel is 
made vulgar, and laid more open to the laity, and even to women who could 
read, than it used to be to the most learned of the clergy, and those of the 
best understanding. And so the Gospel jewel, or evangelical pearl, is 
thrown about and trodden under foot of swine." 

-Since. ^ Or. ^Bohemians. ^ Have. "^ Know, or tell. 'Scholars. 
^° Or because. 



24 WICLIF. [RICHARD II. 



THE ALL-SUFFICIEXCY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

" Christian men and women, old and young, shoulden study 
fast in the New Testament, and that no simple man of wit 
should be aferde immeasurably to study in the text of holy 
writ ; that pride and covetisse of clerks,^ is cause of their 
blindness and heresy, and priveth them fro very understand- 
ing of holy writ. That the New Testament is of full autority, 
and open to understanding of simple men, as to the points 
that ben most needful to salvation ; that the text of holy writ 
ben word of everlasting life, and that he that keepeth meek- 
ness and charity, hath the true understanding and perfection 
of all holy writ ; that it seemeth open heresy to say that the 
Gospel with his truth and freedom sufficeth not to salvation 
of Christian men, without keeping of ceremonies and statutes 
of sinful men and uncunning, that ben made in the time of 
Satanas and of Anti-Christ ; that men ought to desire only 
the truth and freedom of the holy Gospel, and to accept man's 
law and ordinances only in as much as they ben grounded 
in holy scripture, either good reason and common profit of 
Christian people. That if any man in earth, either angel of 
heaven teacheth us the contrary of holy writ, or any thing 
against reason and charity, we should flee from him in that, as 
fro the foul fiend of hell, and hold us stedfastly to life and 
death, to the truth and freedom of the holy Gospel of Jesus 
Christ ; and take us meekly men's sayings and laws, only in 
as much as they accorden with holy writ and good con- 
sciences ; no further, for life, neither for death. 

" And so (says Wiclifie) they would condemn the Holy 
Ghost, that gave it in tongues to the apostles of Christ, as it is 
written, to speak the word of God in all languages that were 
ordained of God under heaven, as it is written." 



SPECIMENS OF WICLIF S TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE. ^ 

PSAL^I II. 

" Whi gnastiden with teeth hethene men, and pupils thoughten 
veyn thingis. The kyngis of eerthe stoden to gidre, and princes 
camen to gidre aghens the Lord and aghens his Crist. Breke 
we the boondis of hem, and cast vv^e away the yock of hem fro 

1 Scholars. - The original spelling is here preserved in these extracts 

from Wiclif's Bible as a curiosity. 



,1377-1399.] wicLiF. 25 

us. He that dvvelleth in hevenes schal scorne hem : and the 
Lord schal bemowe hem. Thanne he schal speke to hem in 
his ire ; and schal distroiible hem in his stronge vengeaunce. 
Forsothe I am maad of him a kyng on Sion his hooli hil, prech- 
ynge his coramandementis. The Lord seide to me, thou art 
my sone : I have gendred thee to-day. Axe thou of me and I 
shall gheve to thee hethene men thine heritage: and thi posses- 
sioun the teermes of the eerthe. Thou shalt governe hem in 
an yren gherd,' and thou shalt breke hem as a vessel of a pot- 
ter. And now, ye kyngis, understonde : ye that deemen the 
erthe be lernid. Serve ye to the Lord with dreed: and make 
ye, ful oute, joie to him with trembling. Take ye lore: leest 
the Lord be wrooth sumtyme : and leest ye perischen fro the 
right weye. Whaune his ire brenneth oute in shorte tyme, 
blessed ben alle thei that tristene in him." 

MATTHEW, CHAP. Y. 

"And Jhesus seynge the peple, went up into an hil; and 
whanne he was sett, his disciplis camen to him. And he 
openyde his mouthe, and taughte hem ; and seide, Blessid be 
pore men in spirit ; for the kyngdom of hevenes is herun.^ 
Blessid ben mylde men : for thei schulenweelde the erthe. 
Blessid ben thei that mournen ; for thei schal be coumfortid. 
Blessid be thei that hungren and thirsten rightwisnesse :^ for 
thei schal be fulfilled. Blessed ben merciful men: for thei 
schul gete mercy. Blessed ben thei that ben of clene herte: 
for thei schulen se God. Blessid ben pesible men : for thei 
schulen be clepid goddis children. Blessid ben thei that sufFren 
persecucioun for rightwisnesse : for the kyngdom of hevenes is 
hern. Ye schul be blessid whanne men schul curse you, and 
schul pursue you : and schul seye al yvel agens you liynge for 
me. Joie ye and be ye glade : for your meede is plenteous in 
hevenes : for so thei han pursued also prophetis that weren 
bifore you. Ye ben salt of the erthe, that if the salt vanishe 
awey wherynne schal it be salted ? to nothing it is worth over, 
no but it be cast out, and be defoulid of men. Ye ben light of 
the world, a citee set on an hill may not be hid. Ne me 
teendith not a lanterne and puttith it undir a bushel : but on a 
candilstik that it give light to alle that ben in the hous. So, 
schyne your light bifore men, that thei see youre gode worlds, 
and glorifie your fadir that is in hevenes. Nyle ghe deme that 
I cam to undo the Lawe or the prophetis, I cam not to undo 

' An iron yard, or rod. " Theirs. =^ E,ightfulnesse MS. jJ^ures. 



26 BARBOUR. [rICHARD II. 

the lawe but to fulfille. Forsothe I sey to you till hevene and 
erthe passe, oon lettre, or oon title, schal not passe fro the 
Lawe til alle thingis be don. Therfore he that brekith oon of 
these leeste maundementis, and techith thus men, schal be 
clepid the Least in the rewme of hevenes : but he that doth, 
and techith, schal be clepid greet in the kyngdom of hevenes." 



JOHN BARBOUR. 1326—1396. 

A>ioNG the very earliest of the poets of Scotland was John Barbour, 
Archdeacon of Aberdeen. But very Httle is known of his personal history. 
The only work of consequence which he has left, is entitled " Bruce." It 
is a metrical history of Robert the First (1306 — 1329) — his exertions and 
achievements for the recovery of the independence of Scotland, and the prin- 
cipal transactions of his reign. Barbour, therefore, is to be considered in 
the double character of historian and poet. As he flourished in the age 
immediately following that of his hero, he enjoyed the advantage of hearing 
from eye-witnesses themselves, narratives of the war for liberty. As a 
history, his work is good authority. He himself boasts of its "soothfast- 
ness ;" and the lofty sentiments and vivid descriptions with which it 
abounds, prove the author to have been fitted by feeling and principle, as 
well as by situation, for the task which he undertook. 

As the language of Barbour is now exceedingly obsolete, we will give 
but one quotation from his heroic poem. At'ter the painful description of 
the slavery to which Scotland was reduced by Edward I., he breaks out in 
the following noble Apostrophe to Freedom. It is in a style of poetical feel- 
ing uncommon not only in that but many subsequent ages, and has been 
quoted with high praise by the most distinguished Scottish historians and 
critics. 

" A ! fredome is a nobill thing ! 

Fredome mayse man to haiti' liking ! 

Fredome all solace to man gifBs : 

He le\ys at ese that frely le^ys ! 

A noble hart may haiff nane ese, 

Na ellys nocht that may him plcse, 

Gyff freedonie failythe : for fre liking 

Is yearnyt our all otliir thing 

Na he, that ay hase levyt fre, 

]May nocht kna^v Weill the propyrte, 

The angyr, na the wrechyt dome, 

That is cowplyt to foule thyrldome. 

Bot gyfF he had assayit it, 

Than all perquer he suld it wyt ; 

And srdd think fredome mar to pryse 

Than all the gold in warld that is."> 

'■ The following paraphrase of the above lines is taken from Chambers' 



1377-1399.] CHAUCER. ■ 27 



GEOFFRY CHAUCER, 1328—1400. 

We now come to one of the brightest names in EngHsh literature — to 
him who has been distinctively known as the Father of English poetry — 
GeofFry Chaucer. Warton has with great beauty and justice compared the 
appearance of Chaucer in our language, to a premature day in an English 
Spring, after which the gloom of Winter returns, and the buds and blossoms 
which have been called forth by a transient sunshine, are nipped by frosts 
and scattered by storms. 

Chaucer was born in the year 1328, and was educated at Oxford. His 
great genius early attracted the notice of the reigning sovereign, Edward 
III., and he soon became the most popular personage in the brilliant court 
of that monarch. It was in this circle of royalty that he became attached to 
a lady whom he afterwards married, Philippa Pyknard. She was maid of 
honor to the queen, PhiUppa, and a younger sister of the wife of John of 
Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. By this connection, therefore, Chaucer 
acquired the powerful support of the Lancastrian family, and during his 
life his fortune fluctuated v,ith theirs. To his courtly accomplishments he 
added much by foreign travel, having been commissioned by the king in 
1372 to attend to some important matters of state at Genoa. While in 
Italy he became acquainted with Petrarch,' and probably with Boccacio, 
whose works enriched his mind with fresh stores of learning and images of 
beauty, and whose great success was doubtless a spur to his ambition to 
attain a like enviable fame. 

On his return home, the friendship and patronage of the reigning monarch 

Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen, in four volumes, a work of 
great interest and merit. 

Ah ! freedom is a noble thing, 
And can to life a relish bring, 
Freedom all solace to man gives ; 
He lives at ease that freely lives. 
A noble heart may have no ease, 
Xor aught beside that may it please, 
If freedom fail — for 'tis the choice. 
More than the chosen, man enjoys. 
Ah, he that ne'er yet lived in thrall. 
Knows not the weary pains which gall 
The limbs, the soul, of him who plains 
In slavery's foul and festering chains. 
If these he knew, I ween right soon 
He would seek back the precious boon 
Of freedom, which he then would prize 
More than all wealth beneath the skies. 

^ The three distinguished scholars of Italy of the fourteenth century were, 
Dante (1265 — 1321), the father of modern Italian poetry ; Petrarch (1304 — 
1374), the reviver of ancient learning, and the first founder and collector of 
any considerable library of ancient literature; and Boccacio (1313 — 1375), 
the father of modern Italian prose. 



28 • CHAUCER. [henry IV. 

were continued to him. He was made controller of the customs of wine 
and wool, the revenue from which office, together with a pension that was 
granted to him, gave him a liberal support. During the v/hole of the reign 
of Edward III., his genius and connections seemed to keep him in prosperity, 
as well as during the period of John of Gaunt's influence of the succeeding 
reign of Richard II., 1377 — 1399. But during the waning fortunes of that 
nobleman, Chaucer also suffered, and was indeed imprisoned for a short 
time ; but on the return of the Duke of Lancaster from Spain, 1389, he had 
once more a steady protector, and on the accession of Henry IV., he had an 
additional annuity conferred upon him. But he did not live long to enjoy 
this accession to his fortune, for he died on the twenty-fifth of October, 
1400, and was interred in Westminster Abbey. 

Chaucer's genius, like Cowper's, was not fully developed till he was 
advanced in years ; for it was not until he was about sixty, in the calm 
evening of a busy life, that he composed his great work on which his fame 
chiefly rests, his Canterbury Tales. He took the idea, doubtless, from 
the Decameron of Boccacio,i at that time one of the most popular of books. 
He supposes that a company of pilgrims, consisting of twenty-nine "sundry 
folk," meet together at the Tabard inn, Southwark, (near London,) on 
their way to the shrine of Thomas a Becket,^ at Canterbury. While at 
supper they agreed, at the suggestion of their host, not only to pursue their 
journey together the next morning, but, in order to render their way the 
more interesting, that each should divert the others with a tale, both in going 
and returning, and that v»'hoever told the best, should have a supper at the 
expense of the rest ; and that the landlord should be the judge. 

It will thus be seen that the plan of Chaucer is vastly superior to that of 
Boccacio. His characters, instead of being youthful, and from the same 
city, are of matured experience, from various places, and are drawn 
from every class of mankind, and, consequently, are, in their rank, appear- 
ance, manners, and habits, very widely opposed. But what gives us the 
greatest admiration of the poet, is the astonishing skill with v.'hich he has 
supported his characters, and the exquisite address that he has shown in 
adapting his stories to the different humors, sentiments, and talents of the 
reciters. He has thus given us such an accurate picture of ancient manners, 
as no cotemporary writer has transmitted to posterity, and in the Canterbury 
Tales we view the pursuits and employments, the customs and diversions 
of the reign of Edward III., copied from the life, and represented with equal 

^ Boccacio supposes that when the plague began to abate in Florence (1348), 
ten young persons of both sexes retired to the country to enjoy the fresh air, 
and pass ten days agreeably. (^Hence the name Decameron, Irom the Greek 
cTgZi* (deka) " ten," and tifxi^dt (hemera) " a day.-') Their principal amuse- 
ment was for each to take their turn in telling tales ; and as each of the ten 
told a story a day, and as they continued together ten days, the Decameron 
consists of one hundred tales. 

^ For the murder of this famous archbishop in the reign of Henry II., A. D. 
1171, see History of England. Canterbury was about fifty-three miles S. E. 
from London. 



1399-1413.] CHALXER. 29 

truth and spirit. ^ The following are some select characters, as portrayed in 
the Prologue. 

THE PROLOGUE. 

"Whenne that April, with his showres sote,^ 
The drouth of March hath pierced to the rote,* 
And bathed every vein in such licour, 
Of which virtue engendred is the flow'r ; 
When Zephirus eke, with his sote"2 breath, 
Inspired hath in every holt* and heath 
The tender croppes ; and the younge sun 
Hatla in the Ram his halfe course yrun, 
And smalle fowles maken melody, 
That sleepen alle night with open eye. 
So pricketh them nature in their courages,^ 
Then longen folk to go on pilgrimages. 
And palmers for to seeken strange strands, 
To serve hallows^ couth' in sundry lands ; 
And 'specially from every shire's end 
Of Engleland to Canterbury they wend,^ 
The holy blissful martyr for to seek 
That them hath holpen when that they were sick. 

"Befell that in that season on a day, 
In Southwark at the Tabard^ as I lay, 
Ready to wendenS on my pilgrimage 
To Canterbury with devout courage ; 
At night was come into that hostelry 
Well nine-and-twenty in a company 
Of sundry folk, by dventure yfall 
In fellowship, and pilgrims were they all 
That towdrd Canterbury woulden ride. 
The chambers and the stables weren wide,io 
And well we weren eased^' aite best. 

THE KlflGHT A'SD SQ.UIItE. 

" A Knight there was, and that a worthy man, 
That from the tune that he first began 
To riden out, he loved chivalry, 
Truth and honour, freedom and courtesy. 
Full worthy was he in his lordes war. 
And thereto had he ridden, no man farre.'2 

^ In a subsequent age, the great work of Chaucer exerted a powerful in- 
fluence in helping on the great cause of the Reformation. So much was Cardi- 
nal Wolsey offended at the severity with which the Papal clergy were treated 
in the Pilgrim's Tale, that he laid an interdict upon its ever being printed 
with the rest of the work, and it was with difficulty that the Ploughman's 
Tale was permitted to stand. 

" Sote — sweet. ^ Rote — root. ^ Kelt — grove, forest. ^ Courages — 
hearts, spirits. •= Hallows — hoUness. ■" Couth — known. ^ Wend — go, 
make way. * That is, the inn called " The Tabard." The Tabard was a 
''jacket, or sleeveless coat, worn in times past by noblemen in the wars, but 
now only l^y heralds, and is called their coat of arms in service." — Speght. 
'° Wide — spacious. " Eased atte best — commodiously lodged. '- Farre — 
farther. 



30 CHAUCER. [henry IV. 

As well in Christendom as in Heatheness, 
And ever honour'd for his worthiness. 

" With him there was his son, a younge Squire, 
A lover and a lusty bachelor, 
With lockes curl'd as they were laid in press ; 
Of twenty years of age he was I guess. 
Of his stature he was of even length. 
And wonderly deliver,' and great of strength; 
And he had been some time in chevachie,^ 
In Flaunders, in Artois, and in Picardie, 
And borne him well, as of so little space,^ 
In hope to standen in his lady's grace. 

" Embroidered was he, as it were a mead 
All full of freshe flowres white and red : 
Singing he was or floyting^ all the day ; 
He was as fresh as is the month of May : 
Short was his gown, with sleeves long and wide ; 
Well could he sit on horse, and faire ride: 
He coulde songes make, and well endite. 
Joust and eke dance, and well pourtray and write : 
So hot he loved, that by nightertaleS 
He slept no more than doth the nightingale : 
Courteous he was, lowly and serviceable. 
And carv'd before his father at the table." 

THE MOKK. 

" A Monk there was, a fair^ for the mast'ry', 
An out-rider,7 that loved venery ;§ 
A manly man to been^ an abbot able ; 
Full many a dainty horse had he in stable. 
And when he rode men might his bridle hear 
Gingling in a whistling wind as clear 
And eke as loud as doth the chapel bell, 
There'O as this lord was keeper of the cell. 

"I saw his sleeves purfiled" at the hand 
With gris,'2 and that the finest of the land ; 
And, for to fasten his hood under his chin, 
He had of gold ywrought a curious pin ; 
A love-knot in the greater end there was : 
His head was bald, and shone as any glass, 

1 Wonderly deliver — wonderfully active : from the French libre, free. 
^ Chevachie, (French, chevauchee) — a military expedition. ^ Conducted 
himself well, considering the short time that he had served. * Floyting — 
fluting, playing on the flute, whistling.* ^ Nightertale — night-time. « A 
fair — that is, " a fair one." " Out-rider — as we should say " a rider out- 
and-out." ^ Venery — hunting. " Been — to have been. " There — 
where. " Purfiled — wrought at the edge. ^^ Gris — a fur, and probably 
from the name of a gray colour. 

* The Squire w^ould not, in all probability, have a flute always with him. 
I should therefore prefer the reading that he " whistled all the day ;" as be- 
ing a more natural touch of character, as well as in keeping with the hilarity 
of youth. 



1399-1413.] CHAUCER. 31 

And eke his face, as it had been anoint ; 
He was a lord full fat and in good point : 
His eyen steep, and rolling in his head, 
That steamed as a furnace of a lead ; 
His bootes supple, his horse in great estate ; 
Now certainly he was a fair prelate : 
He was not pale as a forepined^ ghost; 
A fat swan lov'd he best of any roast : 
His palfrey was as brown as is a berry." 

THE CLERK, 

" A Clerk^ there was of Oxenford also, 
That unto logic hadde long ygo.^ 
As leane was his horse as is a rake, 
And he was not right fat I undertake, 
But looked hollow, and thereto soberly. 
Full threadbare was his overest courtepy ;4 
For he had gotten him yet no benefice, 
Nor was nought worldly to have an office ; 
For him was lever^ have at his bed's head 
Twenty bookes clothed in black or red 
Of Aristotle and his philosophy. 
Than robes rich, or fiddle or psaltry : 
But all be that he "was a philosopher 
Yet hadde he but little gold in coffer, 
But all that he might of his friendes hent,^ 
On bookes and on learning he it spent, 
And busily 'gan for the soules pray 
Of them that gave him wherewith to scholayj 
Of study took he moste cure and heed; 
Not a word spake he more than was need. 
And that was said in form and reverence, 
And short and quick, and full of high sentence :8 
Sounding in moral virtue was his speech, 
And gladly would he learn and gladly teach." 

THE WIFE. 

" A good 'Wife was there of beside Bath, 
But she was some deal deaf, and that was scathe.® 
Of cloth-making she hadde such a haunt'O 
She passed them of Ypres and of Ghent. 
In all the parish, wife ne was there none 
That to the offring before her shoulde gone, 
And if there did, certain so wroth was she. 
That she was out of alle charity. 
Her coverchiefsii weren full fine of ground ; 
I durste swear they weigheden a pound, 

^ Forepined — wasted. ^ That is, a scholar. ^ ygo — part, past, gone. 
" Overest courtepy — uppermost short cloak. = Lever — rather. « Hent — 
catch hold of. '' Scholay — study. « High sentence — i. e. lofty period, 
" Scathe — harm, damage. ^o Haunt— custom. " Head-dress. 



32 CHAUCER. [henry IV. 

That on the Sunday were upon her head : 
Her hosen weren of fine scarlet red, 
Full strait ytied, and shoes full moist^ and new : 
Bold was her face, and fan' and red of hew. 
She was a worthy woman all her live ; 
Husbands at the church door had she had five." 

THE PARSOX. 

" A good man there was of religion. 
That was a poore Parson of a town. 
But rich he was of holy thought and work ; 
He was also a learned man, a Clerk, 
That Christes gospel truly woulde preach ; 
His ]3arishens2 devoutly would he teach ; 
Benign he was, and wonder diligent. 
And in adversity full patient, 
And such he was yproved often sithes :3 
Full loth were him to cursen for his tithes : 
But rather would he given out of doubt 
Unto his poore parishens about 
Of his oft'"ring, and eke of his substance ; 
He could in little thing have suflisance -.^ 
Wide was his parish, and houses far asunder, 
But he ne left nought for no rain nor thimder. 
In sickness and in mischief, to visit 
The farthest in his parish much and lite^ 
Upon his feet, and in his hand a stafi:': 
This noble "nsample to his sheep he yaf,^ 
Tliat first he wrought, and aftervrard he taught, 
Out of the gospel he the wordes caught, 
And this figure he added yet thereto, 
That if gold ruste what should iron do ? 
For if a priest be foul on whom we trust, 
No wonder is a lowed'' man to rust; 
And shame it is, if that a priest take keep 
To see a ' fouled' shepherd and clean sheep : 
Well ought a priest ensample for to give 
By his cleanness how his sheep should live. 

"He sette not liis benefice to hire, 
And let his sheep accumbreds in the mire, 
And ran unto London unto Saint Poule's 
To seeken him a chantery^ for souls, 

^ Moist — fresh. ^ Parishens — parishioners. ^ Sithes — times. * Suffi- 
sance — sufficiency. ^ Much and lite — great and small. « Yaf— gave. 
■" Lewed — ignorant. « ^ Accumbred — encumbred. ^ Chantery.* 



* An endowment for the payment of a priest to sing mass agreeably to the 
appointment of the founder. There were thirty-five of these chantries esta- 
blished at St. Paul's, which vvere served by fifty-four priests. — Dugdale, Hist, 
pref. p. 41. 



1399-1413.] CHAUCER. 33 

Or with a brotherhood to be withold;^ 
But dwelt at home and kepte well his fold, 
So that the wolf ne made it not miscarry: 
He was a shepherd and no mercenary ; 
And though he holy "were, and "virtuous, 
He was to sinful men not dispitous,^ 
Ne of his speeche dangerous^ ne digne ;* 
But in his teaching discreet and benign. 
To drawen folk to heaven with faireness. 
By good ensample, was his business ; 
But it were^ any person obstinate. 
What so he were of high or low estate, 
Him would he snibben'' sharply for the nones -J 
A better priest I tro"w that no where none is. 
He waited after no pomp or reverence, 
Ne maked him no spiced conscience ; 
But Christes lore,^ and his apostles twelve 
He taught, but first he followed it himselve." 

But the Canterbury Tales are by no means the only production of 
Chaucer's muse. He has written many other poems containing passages 
equal to anything found in his chief work. The following are the prin- 
cipal. 

Troilus and Creseida. This is in five books, " in which the vicissi- 
tudes of love are depictedin a strain of true poetry, with much pathos and 
simphcity of sentiment." The author calls it " a litill tragedie." On the 
whole, however, it is rather tedious, from its innumerable digressions. For 
instance, Troilus declaims, for about one hundred lines, on the doctrine of 
predestination. 

RoMAUNT OF THE RosE. This is an allegory, depicting the difficulties 
and dangers encountered by a lover in pursuit of the object of his affections, 
who is set forth under the emblem of the rose. He traverses vast ditches, 
scales lofty walls, and forces the gates of adamantine and almost impregna- 
ble castles. These enchanted fortresses are all inhabited by various divini- 
ties, some of which assist, and some oppose the lover's progress. Thus 
this poem furnishes a great variety of rich and beautiful descriptions — 
paintings most true to nature. 

The House of Fame. This is represented under the form of a dream, 
and consists of three books. It abounds in lively and vigorous description, 
in disquisitions on natural philosophy, and in sketches of human nature of 
no common beauty. The poet, in a vision, sees a temple of glass, on the 
walls of which are displayed in portraitures the history of jEneas, abridged 
from Virgil. After looking around him, he sees aloft, " fast by the sun," a 
gigantic eagle, which souses down, and bears him off in his talons through 
the upper regions of air, leaving clouds, tempests, hail, and snow far beneath 

' Withold — vvitholden, withheld. ^ Dispitous — inexorable, angry to 

excess. ^^ Dangerous — sparing. * Digne — proud, disdainful. ^ But it 
were — should it happen that any one were, &c. ^ Snibben — rebuke. 

" For the nones — for the occasion. ''^ Lore — learning, doctrine. 



34 CHAUCER. [henry VII. 

him, and at length arrives among the celestial signs of the Zodiac. Here 
his journey ends. The " House of Fame" is before him. It is built of 
materials bright as polished glass, and stands on a rock of ice of excessive 
height, and almost inaccessible. All the southern side of the rock is 
covered with the names of famous men, which were perpetually melting 
away by the heat of the sun; but those on the northern side remained 
unmelted and uneffaced. The poet then enters the building, and beholds 
the Goddess of Fame, seated upon a throne of sculptured carbuncle. Before 
her appear the various candidates for her favor ; and here the poet has admi- 
rably improved the wide field before him in describing the capricious judg- 
ment of the fickle deity, in awarding her favors. 

Pope, in his " Temple of Fame," has imitated Chaucer to a considerable 
extent, as may be seen by comparing various passages in each author. 

"the eagle's flight with the poet. 

" And I adown 'gan looken tho,i 
And beheld fieldes and plaines, 
Now hilles and now niountaines, 
Now valleys and now forestes, 
And now unnethes2 great beastes, 
Now riveres, now cityes, 
Now townes, and now great trees 
Now sliippes sailing in the sea ; 
But thus soon in a while he 
Was flowen from the ground so high 
That all the world, as to mine eye, 
No more yseemed than a prick,^ 
Or elles was the air so thick 
That I ne might it not discern."^ 

The Flower and the Leaf. This has an instructive moral. A gentle- 
woman, out of an arbor in a grove, seeth a great company of knights and 
ladies in a dance upon the green grass, the which being ended they all 
kneel down, and do honor to the daisy, some to the Flower and some to 
the Leaf. Afterward this gentlewoman learneth by one of these ladies the 
meaning hereof, which is this : they who honor the Flower, a thing fading 
with every blast, are such as look after beauty and worldly pleasure ; but 

'■ The — then. ^ Unnethes — not easily, with difficulty. ^ Prick — 

point. 

* I stood, methought, betwixt earth, seas and skies, 
The whole creation open to my eyes : 
In air self-balanced hung the globe below, 
Where mountains rise, and circling oceans flow; 
Here naked rocks and empty wastes are seen, 
There tow'ry cities, and the forests green ; 
Here sailing ships delight the wand'ring eyes ; 
There trees, and intermingled temples rise. 

Temple of Fame, lines 11 — 18. 



1485-1509.] CAXTOX. 35 

they that honor the Leaf, which abideth with the root, notwithstanding the 
winter storms and frosts, are they which follow virtue and true merit, with- 
out regarding worldly respects. 

Such are the chief poems of Geoffrey Chaucer. "■ 



WILLIAM CAXTON. 1413— 149L 

The name of William Caxton will ever be held in grateful remembrance 
by the world of letters, for he it was who introduced the art of printing into 
England.^ He was born in the County of Kent in the year 1413, and at the 
age of fifteen was put as an apprentice to a merchant of London. In con- 
sideration of his integrity and good behavior, his master bequeathed him a 
small sum of money as a capital with which to trade. He was soon cliosen 
by the Mercers' Company to be their agent in Holland and Flanders, in 
which countries he spent about twenty-three years. While there, the new 
invention of the art of printings was everywhere spoken of; and Caxton, at 

^ Read Clarke's Tales from Chaucer, written in imitation ofLamb's Tales from 
Shakspeare, and Clarke's Riches of Chaucer, Also, an interesting and able 
critique upon Chaucer in the Retrospective Review, vol. ix. page 173; and 
another in the Edinburgh Review, iii. 437 ; also a parallel between Chaucer 
and Spencer in the latter Review, xxiv. 58, 

2 Albion ! still thy gratitude confess 
To Caxtois', founder of the British Press : 
Since first thy mountains rose, or rivers flowed, 
Who on thy isles so rich a boon bestow'd. 

The Press, a Poem, by John M'Creery. 

See also a tribute to the memory of Caxton, by the talented author of the Corn 
Law Rhymes, Ebenezer Elliot, beginning, 

Lord ! taught by thee, when Caxton bade 

His silent words forever speak ; 
A grave for tyrants then was made — 

Then crack'd the chain which yet shall break. 

=> It is not a little singular that the history of printing, that art which com- 
memorates all other inventions, and which hands down to posterity every 
important event, is so enveloped in mystery that the ablest minds in Europe 
have had long and acrimonious disputations respecting the question to what 
place and to what person the invention is rightfully due. There is not space 
here to give even an outline of these controversies; I can merely give the 
result. The two cities which claim the discovery are Haarlem or Haerlem, a 
city of North Holland, and Mentz, in Germany on the Rhine. The dispute, 
however, as Mr. Timperley properly observes, has turned rather on words 
than facts, arising from the different definitions of the word printing. If the 
honor is to be awarded from the discovery of the principle, it is unquestiona- 
bly due to Lawrence Coster, of Haarlem, who first found out the method of 
impressing characters on paper, by means of blocks of carved wood, about 



36 CAXTON. [henry VII- 

a great expense of time and labor, and with an industry to which all obstacles 
will ever give way, made himself complete master of it, as then known. 
He first employed himself in translating from French into English. The 
EecuyelV of the Histories of Troye, which was published at Cologne, 1471, 
and is the first book ever printed in the English language. The next year 
Caxton returned to England, and in 1474 put forth The Game of Chess, 
remarkable as being the first book ever printed in England. It was entitled, 
The Game and Playe of the Chesse : Translated out of the French, and 
imprynted by William Caxton,. Fynyshed the last day of JMarche, the yer of 
our Lord God, a thousand foure hundred, Ixxiiij. 

Caxton was a man who united great modesty and simplicity of character 
to indefatigable industry. He styled himself "simple William Caxton." 
He printed, in all, about sixty-four different works, continuing to prepare 
copy for the press to the very close of his life ; and though of no bril- 
liancy of talent, he exemplifies, in a remarkable degree, how much good one 
man Hiay do, of even moderate powers, provided he industriously and faith- 
fully employs all that has been given to him with an eye single to one great 
object. 

Among other works^ printed by Caxton were the Chronicles of England, 
which contained indeed some true history, but much more of romantic fable. 
As a specimen of the latter the following may be given upon the 

ORIGIN OF THE NAME OF ALBION. 

" Before that I will speak of Bmte,^ it shall be shewed how 
the land of England was first named Albion, and by what 
encheson* it was so named. 

" Of the noble land of Syria, there was a royal king and 
mighty, and a man of great renown, that was called Diocle- 
sian, that well and worthily him governed and ruled thro' his 
noble chivalry; so that he conquered all the lands about him ; 
so that almost all the kings of the world to him were attendant. 
It befel thus that this Dioclesian spoused a gentle damsel that 
was wonder fair, that was his uncle's daughter, Labana. And 

1430. If movable types be considered the criterion, as it seems to me they 
must, the merit of the invention is due to John Guttenburg, of Mentz, who 
used them about 1440 : while SchoefFer, in conjunction with Faust, (more 
familiarly known as Dr. Faustus,) was the first who founded types of metal. 

From all the arguments and opinions, therefore, which have been adduced 
in this important controversy, the following conclusion may be satisfactorily 
drawn. To JOHN GUTTENBURG is due the appellation of Father of 
Printing ; to PETER SCHOEFFER that of father of letter-founding ; 
and to JOHN FAUST that of generous Patron, by whose means the wonder- 
ful discovery was brought rapidly to perfection, 

^ Compilation — selection. ^ For a full list of his works, see Ames' Typo- 
graphical Antiquities, or Timperley's History of Printing, page 165. ^ This 
Brute was the grandson of J^^neas, and the old chronicles derived the descent 
of the Britons from the Trojans. ^ Chance. 



1485-1509.] CAXTON. 37 

sjie loved him as reason would ; so that he had by her thirty- 
three daughters ; of the which the eldest was called Albine. 
And these damsels, when they came unto age, became so fair 
that it was wonder. Whereof Dioclesian anon let make a sum- 
moning, aftd commanded by his letters, that all the kings that 
held of him, should come at a certain day, as in his letters were 
contained, to make a feast royal. At which day, thither they 
came, and brought with them admirals, princes, and dukes, and 
noble chivalry. The feast was royally arrayed ; and there they 
lived in joy and mirth enough, that it was wonder to wyte.^ 
And it befel thus, that Dioclesian thought to marry his daughters 
among all those kings that were of that solemnity. And so 
they spake and did, that Albine, his eldest daughter, and all her 
sisters, richly were married unto thirty-three kings, that were 
lords of great honour and of power at this solemnity. And 
when the solemnity was done, every king took his wife, and 
led them into their own country, and there made them queens." 

The story then goes on to relate how these thirty-three wives conspired to 
kill their husbands, all on the same night, and anon, as their lords were 
they cut all their husbands' throats ; and so they slew them all. 



" When that Dioclesian, their father, heard of this thing, he 
became furiously wroth against his daughters, and anon, would 
them all have brente.^ But all the barons and lords of Syria, 
counseled not so for to do such straitness^ to his own daugh- 
ters ; but only should void the land of them for evermore ; so 
that they never should come again ; and so he did. 

" And Dioclesian, that was their father, anon commanded 
them to go into a ship, and delivered to them victuals for half 
a year. And when this was done, all the sisters went into the 
ship, and sailed forth in the sea, and took all their friends to 
Apolin, that was their God. And so long they sailed in the 
sea, till at the last they came and arrived in an isle, that was 
all wilderness. And when dame Albine was come to that land, 
and all her sisters, this Albine went first forth out of the ship, 
and said to her other sisters : for as much (said she), as I am 
the eldest sister of all this company, and first this land hath 
taken ; and for as much as my name is Albine, I Avill that this 
land be called Albion, after mine own name. And anon, all 
her sisters granted to her with a good will." 

'■ Know. i Burnt. ^ Strictness. 



38 DUNBAR. [henry VIII. 



WILLIAM DUNBAR, 1465—1530. 

William Dukbar is pronounced by Ellis, i to be "the greatest poet 
Scotland has produced." His writings, however, with scarcgly an excep- 
tion, remained in the obscurity of manuscript, till the beginning of the last 
century ; but his fame since then has been continually rising. His chief 
poems are The Thistle and The Rose, The Daxce, and The Golben 
Terge. The Thistle and the Rose was occasioned by the marriage of 
James IV,, of Scotland, with Margaret Tudor, the eldest daughter of Henry 
VII. of England, an event in which the whole future political state of both 
nations was vitally interested, and which ultimately produced the union of 
the two crowns and kingdoms, in the person of James VI. of Scotland, and 
I. of England, 1603 — 1625. This poem opens with the following stanzas, 
remarkable for their descriptive and picturesque beauties. 

" Qidien'^ Mercbe wes wdtli variand windis past. 
And Appryll had with hir silver sliouris 
Tane leifs at Nature, with ane orient blast, 
And lusty May, that muddir^ is of flouris, 
Had maid the birdis to begyn thair houris, 
Amang the tendir odouris reid and quliyt 
Quhois^ harmony to heir it wes dejyt : 

"In bed at morrow sleiping as I lay, 
Methocht Aurora, with her cristall ene 
In at the window lukit^ by the day, 
And halsit7 me with Adsage pale and gi-ene ; 
On quhois hand a lark sang, fro the splene.s 
'Awak, luvaris.9 out of yoiu- slemering,'" 
Se how"^ the lusty morrow dois upspring !' 

" Methocht fresche May befoir my bed upstude, 
In weid'i depaynt of mony diverse hew, 
Sober, benyng, and full of mansuetude, 
In bright atteir of flouris forgit'2 new, 
Hevinly of color, quhyt, reid, brown, and blew, 
Balmit in dew, and gilt wdth Phebus' bemys ; 
Quhil al the house illumynit of her lemys.'^ 

The Dance of the seven deadly sins through hell, has much merit. On 
the eve of Lent, a day of general confession, the poet, in a dream, sees a dis- 
play of heaven and hell. Mahomet,'-^ or the devil, commands a dance to be 
performed by a select party of fiends, and immediately the seven deadly sins 
appear. The following is a description of Envy. 

1 Specimens of the Early English Poets, vol. i. p. 377: but should he not 
have excepted Burns and Sir Walter Scott ? ^ when. Qu has the force 
of w. ^ Taken leave. * Mother. ^ Whose. ^ Looked. '' Hailed. 
8 With good will. ^ Lovers. ^"Slumbering. "Attire. ^-Forged, 
made, " Brightness. " The Christians, in the crusades, were accus- 
tomed to hear the Saracens swear by their Prophet Mahomet, who then 
became in Europe another name for the Devil. 



1509-1547.] DUNBAR. 39 

" Next in the dance followit Ijf vt, 
Fild full of feid' and fellony, 

Hid malyce and dispyte; 
For pryvie haterit^ that tratour trynilit,^ 
Him followit mony freik dissymlit,^ 

With feynit wordis quhyte. 
And flattereris into mens facis, 
And back-by ttaris^ of sundry racis, 

To leyS that had delyte. 
With rownaris'^ of fals lesingis -.^ 
Allace ! that couvtis of noble kingis 

Of tham can neyir be quyte !'"9 

As a specimen of one of his minor poems take the following, containing so 
much wholesome advice. 



I. 

" Be merry, man ! and take not sair ha mind 

The wavering of this wretchit world of sorrow ! 
To God be humble, and to thy friend be kind, 

And with thy neighbours gladly lend and borrow 
His chance to-night, it may be thine to-morrow. 

Be blithe m heart for any aventure ; 
For oft w^ith wysure'O it has been said aforro^v,ll 

Without gladness availis no treasure. 

II. 

" Make thee good cheer of it that God thee sends, 

For worldis wrak'2 but welfare, nought avails : 
Na good is thine, save only but thou spends ; 

Remenant all thou brookis but with bales. '3 
Seek to solace wdien sadness thee assails : 

In dolour lang thy life may not endure ; 
Wherefore of comfort set up all thy sails : 

W^ithout gladness availis no treastire. 



"Follow on pity;'4 flee trouble and debate; 

With famous folkis hold thy company ; 
Be charitable, and humble in thine estate, 

For worldly honour lastis but a cry; '5 
For trouble in earth take no melancholy ; 

Be rich in patience, gif thou in goods be poor ; 
Who livis merry, he livis mightily : 

Without gladness availis no treas&re. 

^ Enmity. - Hatred. ^ Trembled. * Dissembling gallant. ^ Back- 
biters. "^ Lie. '' Rounders, whispers. To round in the ear, or simply 
to round, was to whisper in the ear. » Falsities. » Free. ^° Wisdom. 
" A-fore, before. '^ Merchandise, treasure, that is, world's trash without 
health. " Thou canst enjoy all the remainder only with hale, or sorrow. 
^» Originally i)% and piety are the same. '» No longer than a sound. 



40 MORE. [henry VIII. 

"Though all the werki that ever had livand wight 

Were only thine, no more thy part does fall 
But meat, drink, clais,2 and of the laif ^ a sight ! 

Yet, to the judge thou shall give 'compt of all. 
Ane reckoning right comes of ane ragment* small, 

Be just, and joyous, and do to none injure, 

AlfD TRUTH SHAXL MAKT THEE STRO^'G AS A>'T WALL : 

Without gladness availis no treasure." 



SIR THOMAS MORE, 1480—1535. 

Sir Thomas More was, without doubt, the most prominent character of 
the reign of Henry VHI. He was born in London in the year 1480. When 
a boy he was in the family of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who used to 
say of him to his guests, " This boy who waits at my table, who lives to 
see it, will prove a marvellous man." He entered the University of Oxford 
at the age of seventeen, and at the age of twenty-two was elected member 
of Parhament. In 1516 he was sent to Flanders on an important mission, 
and on his return the king conferred on him the honor of knighthood, and 
appointed him one of his privy council. In 1529, on the disgrace of Cardinal 
Wolsey, he was appointed Lord Chancellor, being the first layman who 
ever held the office. But he was soon to experience in himself the language 
which Shakspeare puts into the mouth of Wolsey to Cromwell, — 

" How wretched 
Is that poor man who hangs on prince's faA'ors." 

Henry VIII. doubtless raised More to this high office, that he might aid 
him to obtain a divorce from his wife, and to marry Anne Boleyn. But 
More was sincerely attached to the Roman church, and looked with horror 
upon any thing that was denounced by the supreme head of the church, as 
the king's divorce was by the Pope. He therefore begged that monster, 
Henry VIII., to excuse him from giving an opinion. But the tyrant was 
relentless, and the result was, that when the Act of Supremacy was passed 
by Parliament, 1534, declaring Henry to be the supreme head of the Church, 
More refused to take the oath required of him, and he died on the scaffold, a 
martyr to his adhesion to the Papal church, and the supremacy of the Pope, 
on the fifth of July, 1535. " Nothing is wanting," (says Mr. Hume,) " to 
the glory of this end but a better cause. But as the man followed his prin- 
ciples and sense of duty, however misguided, his constancy and integrity 
are not the less objects of our admiration." 

More was a man of true genius, and of a mind enriched with all the learn- 
ing of his time, and no man had a greater influence over his cotemporaries. 
He was of a very cheerful or rather mirthful disposition, which forsook him 

^ Possessions. ^ Clothes. ^ Remainder, * One accompt. 



1509-1547.] MORE. 41 

not to the last, and he jested even when about to lay his head upon the 
block. The following couplet, which is attributed to him, indicates the 
state of mind, which may have partially enabled him to meet his fate with a 
fortitude so admirable : 

If evils come not, then our fears are vain ; 
And if they do, fear but augments the pain. 

But truth compels me to add that his character presents great inconsisten- 
cies ; for though he was a witty companion, he was a stern fanatic ; though 
playful and affectionate in his own household, he lorded it with an iron rod 
over God's heritage ; though an enlightened statesman, ably arguing in his 
study against sanguinary laws, from his chair of office he spared no pains to 
carry the most sanguinary into execution ; and though ranked as a philoso- 
pher, he, every Friday, scourged his own body with whips of knotted cords, 
and by way of further penance, wore a hair shirt next to his lacerated skin. 

The most celebrated work of Sir Thomas More was his Utopia. ^ The 
title of it is as follows: "A most pleasant, fruitful and witty Work of the 
best State of the pubhc Weal, and of the new Isle called Utopia." It is a 
philosophical romance, in which More, after the manner of Plato, erects an 
imaginary republic, arranges society in a form entirely new, and endows it 
with institutions more likely, as he thought, to secure its happiness, than 
any which mankind had hitherto experienced. But while there is much in 
it that is fanciful and truly Utopian, there is also much that is truly excel- 
lent, and worthy to be adopted. Thus, instead of severe punishment of 
theft, the author would improve the morals and condition of the people, so 
as to take away the temptation to crime ; for, says he, " if you suffer your 
people to be ill^-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their 
infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education 
exposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first 
make thieves and then punish them ?" In Utopia, we are also told, war is 
never entered on but for some gross injury done to themselves, or, more 
especially, to their allies ; and the glory of a general is in proportion, not to 
the number, but to the fewness of the enemies whom he slays, in gaining a 
victory.'^ 

The first chapter of the work is a description of the Island Utopia. It is 
somewhere in the midst of the sea, of a crescent shape, like the new moon, 
but more curved, the two extremities coming nearer together. Hence the 
concave part forms an admirable harbor for ships, but the entrance is so 
full of rocks, that no one but an Utopian could steer a vessel safely into the 
harbor.^ They are therefore secure from the attacks of an enemy. There 

^ More properly written Eutopia, from the Greek eu (iu) " well, liap- 
pily," and topos {tottoc) " a place :" that is, ''a land of perfect happiness." 
■^ More uses this adverb correctly, as do all other pure writers of English: 
but we sometimes see illy, which is vicious. ^ As the Utopia was written 
in Latin, and not translated till a subsequent age, by Bishop Burnet, no extracts 
from it would show the author's English style. " So graphic is Sir Thomas' 
description of Utopia, that many of the learned of that day, took it for true 
history, and thought it expedient that missionaries should be sent out to con- 
vert so wise a people to Christianity. 



42 MORE. [henry VIII. 

are fifty-four cities in the Island, about the same distance apart. The in- 
habitants devote themselves mostly to agriculture. They raise a great deal 
of poultry, and that (to use the words of More) " by a marvellous pohcy : 
for the hens do not sit upon the eggs ; but by keeping them in a certain 
equal heat, they bring life into them and hatch them. The chickens, 
as soon as they come out of the shell, follow men and women instead of 
hens." 

Chapter second describes the cities, streets, and houses. The cities are 
surrounded by high walls ; the streets twenty feet wide. All the houses 
have large gardens in the rear. " Whoso will may go in," for there is 
nothing within the houses that is private, or any man's own. And every 
tenth year they change houses by lot. 

Chapter third is on the manner of choosing Magistrates, which is rather 
obscure. Chapter fourth, on Arts, Trades, and Occupations. Husbandry is a 
science common to all. There are no tailors nor mantua-makers, for all 
make their own garments at home, and that, too, "of the same cut and 
fashion," ^ In one custom they anticipated a characteristic of the nineteenth 
century. " A great multitude of every people, both men and women, go 
to hear lectures, some one and some another, as every man's nature is in- 
clined." 

Chapter fifth is on the Domestic Life and Character of the Utopians. 
There is no covetousness among them, for each householder carries to mar- 
ket what he has, and from it takes what he wants without money or ex- 
change. Chapter sixth is on Modes of Travelling, Traffic, &c. " Though 
they carry nothing forth with them, yet in all their journey they lack 
nothing. For wheresoever they come they be at home." There are no 
"wine taverns nor ale-houses" there; so that the disgraceful business of 
distilling and rum-selling was not known.^ Happy island I^ 

Besides the Utopia, Sir Thomas wrote a great number of theological 
treatises, the main design of which was to oppose the Reformation. He also 
wrote a " History of Edward V. and his Brother, and of Richard III." Of 
this, Hume speaks in the highest terms : " No historian," (he says,) " either 
of ancient or modern times, can possibly have more weight. He may justly 
be esteemed a cotemporary with regard to the murder of the two princes; 
and it is plain from his narrative that he had the particulars from the eye 

^ Thus " The Friends" were anticipated in the Island of Utopia. 
^ Widely different this from the description Cowper has given of England, 
which description may well be transferred to too many parts of our own land. 

Pass where we may, through city or through town, 

Village or hamlet, of this merry land. 

Though lean and beggar'd, — every twentieth pace 

Conducts the unguarded nose to such a whiff 

Of stale debauch, forth issuing from the styes 

That LAW HAS LICENSED, as makes temperance reel. 

^ Such are the subjects of a few chapters of this curious work. I have no 
room for more ; but perhaps enough has been tasted to sharpen the reader's 
appetite for the whole. 



1509-1547.] MORE. 43 

witnesses themselves." That wretch, Richard III., resolved, as the first 
step to his usurpation, to get both the young princes into his hand. Accord- 
ingly he dispatched Cardinal Bouchier with other ecclesiastics, to the Queen, 
to prevail upon her to give them up. After a long dialogue, the cardinal, 
perceiving the little progress he had made with her, finally assured her 
that if she would consent to deliver the Duke of York to him, he " durst lay 
his own body and soul both pledge, not only for his surety, but also for his 
estate." The queen, seeing longer resistance to be fruitless, taking the 
young duke by the hand, thus addressed the cardinal and other lords : 

" My lord, (quod she,) and all my lords, I neither am so 
unwise to mistrust your wits, nor so suspicious to mistrust 
your truths. Of which thing I purpose to make you such a 
proof, as if either of both lacked in you, might turn both me to 
great sorrow, the realm to much harm, and you to great re- 
proach. For lo ! here is (quod she,) this gentleman, whom I 
doubt not I could here keep safe, if I would, whatsoever any 
man say. And 1 doubt not also, that there be some abroad so 
deadly enemies unto my blood, that if they wist where any of 
it lay in their own body, they would let it out. We have also 
had experience that the desire of a kingdom knoweth no kin- 
dred. The brother hath been the brother's bane. And may 
the nephews be sure of their uncle ? Each of these children is 
other's defence while they be asunder, and each of their lives 
lieth in the other's body. Keep one safe, and both be sure ; 
and nothing for them both more perilous, than to be both in 
one place. For what wise merchant ventureth all his goods in 
one ship? All this notwithstanding, here I deliver him, and 
his brother in him, to keep into your hands, of whom I shall 
ask them both afore God and the world. Faithful ye be, that 
wot I well ; and 1 know well you be wise. Power and strength 
to keep him, if ye list, neither lack ye of yourself, nor can lack 
help in their cause. And if ye cannot elsewhere, then may 
you leave him here. But only one thing I beseech you, for the 
trust that his father put in you ever, and for the trust that I put 
in you now, that as far as ye think that I fear too much, be 
you well ware that you fear not as far too little. And there- 
witlial, she said unto the child : Farewell my own sweet son; 
God send you good keeping; let me kiss you once yet ere you 
go : for God knoweth when we shall kiss together again. And 
therewith she kissed him, and blessed him ; turned her back 
and wept, and went her way, leaving the child weeping as 
fast.'" 

* The result is known: the king, (Edward V.) and his brother, the Duke 
of York, were murdered in the tower by the usurper, June, 14S3. 



44 MORE. [henry VIII. 

Sir Thomas was twice married. His first wife was the daughter of a 
country gentleman of high standing, Mr. John Coh. She proved an excel- 
lent wife, sympathizing with him in all his labors and duties; but died 
after having been married six years, leaving three daughters and a son. For 
his second wife he married a widow, Mrs. Alice P^iddleton, of a very differ- 
ent character, being " one of the most loquacious, ignorant, and narrow- 
minded of wom.en." The following letter to her has been deservedly com- 
mended for its spirit of gentleness, benevolence, and piety. 

" Mistress Alice, in my most hearty wise I recommend me to 
you. And whereas I am informed by my son Heron of the 
loss of our barns and our neighbours' also, with all the corn 
that was therein ; albeit (saving God's pleasure) it is great pity 
of so much good corn lost ; yet since it has liked him to send 
us such a chance, we must and are bounden, not only to be 
content, but also to be glad of his visitation. He sent us all 
that we have lost ; and since he hath by such a chance taken 
it away again, his pleasure be fulfilled ! Let us never grudge 
thereat, but take it in good worth, and heartily thank him, as 
well for adversity as for prosperity. And peradventure we 
have more cause to thank him for our loss than for our win- 
ning, for his wisdom better seeth what is good for us than we 
do ourselves. Therefore, I pray you be of good cheer, and 
take all the household with you to church, and there thank 
God, both for that he has given us, and for that he has taken 
from us, and for that he hath left us ; which, if it please him, 
he can increase when he will, and if it please him to leave us 
yet less, at his pleasure be it ! 

" I pray you to make some good onsearch what my poor 
neighbours have lost, and bid them take no thought therefore ; 
for, if I should not leave myself a spoon, there shall no poor 
neighbour of mine bear no loss by my chance, happened in my 
house. I pray you be, with my children and your household, 
merry in God ; and devise somewhat with your friends what 
way were best to take, for provision to be made for corn for 
our household, and for seed this year coming, if we think it 
good that we keep the ground still in our hands. And whether 
we think it good that we so shall do or not, yet I think it were 
not best suddenly thus to leave it all up, and to put away our 
folk from our farm, till we have somewhat advised us thereon. 
Howbeit, if we have more now than ye shall need, and which 
can get them other masters, ye may then discharge us of them. 
But I would not that any man were suddenly sent away, he 
wot not whither. 

" At my coming hither, I perceived none other but that I 



1509-1547.] TYNDALE. 45 

should tarry still with the king's grace. But now I shall, I 
think, because of this chance, get leave this next week to come 
home and see you, and then shall we farther devise together 
upon all things, what order shall be best to take. 

" x^nd thus as heartily fare you well, with all our children, 
as ye can wish. At Woodstock, the third day of September, 
by the hand of Thomas More." 



WILLIAM TYNDALE, 1477—1536. 

No subject is more interesting and instructive than the history of Biblical 
Literature of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. We have before spoken 
of the claims of John Wiclif to our lasting gratitude, for having given us 
the first EngUsh version of the Bible. But that was made, not from the 
originals, but from the Latin Vulgate. Wiclif died 1384. About twenty- 
four years after his death, Archbishop Arundel, in a convocation of the 
clergy of his province assembled at Oxford, published a constitution, by 
which it was decreed, " that no one should thereafter translate any text of 
Holy Scripture into English, by way of a book, a little book, or tract ; and 
that no book of this kind should be read that was composed lately in the 
time of John Wiclif, or since his death." 

The Latin Bible, or Vulgate, was first printed on the continent in 1462; 
the Old Testament in Hebrew 1488, and the New Testament in Greek 
about 1518. When these sacred oracles were brought into England, with 
the introduction of printing, the illiterate and terrified monks declaimed 
from their pulpits, that there was now a new language discovered, called 
Greek, of which people should beware, since it was that which produced all 
the heresies : that in this language was come forth a book called the New 
Testament, which was now in everybody's hands, and was full of thorns 
and briars : that there was also another language now started up, which 
they called Hebrew, and that they who learned it were termed Hebrews. 
One of the priests declared, with a most prophetic wisdom, " We must root 
out printing, or printing will root out us." 

Notwithstanding, however, the clamors of the monks, and the persecu- 
tions of the secular clergy, William Tyndale, in the reign of Henry VIII., 
undertook to translate the Scriptures from the original Hebrew and Greek 
into English, though he knew it would be done at the hazard of his life. 
He was born about the year 1477. At an early age he entered the Univer- 
sity of Oxford ; was there a most diligent student, and thus laid the founda- 
tion of that skill in the learned languages so essential to the successful 
accomphshment of that enterprise which he was so soon to take upon 
himself. 

Soon after leaving the University, he became tutor and chaplain in the 
family of Sir John Welsh, a knight of Gloucestershire, whose liberal table 



46 TYNDALE. [hENRY VIII 

was sure to procure him the frequent visits of the neighboring prelates and 
clergy. On one occasion, being in company with a popish divine, he argued 
so conclusively in favor of a vernacular translation of the Bible, that the 
divine, unable to answer him, exclaimed, " We had better be without God's 
law than the pope's." This fired the spirit of Tyndale, and he indignantly 
replied, "I defy the pope and all his laws ; and if God gives me life, ere 
many years the ploughboys in England shall know more of the Scriptures 
than you do ;" — a pledge which he most nobly redeemed. 

Finding that he could not accomplish his plans at home, Tyndale, in the 
year 1523, became a voluntary exile from his native land, which he was 
never more to revisit. He went to Antwerp, and there, with great assiduity 
prosecuted his design of translating the Scriptures into English. The New 
Testament was finished in 1526. It sold so rapidly that the following year 
another edition was published, and the year after another, each consisting 
of five thousand. Great numbers of these were imported into England and 
speedily sold, though the importers were prosecuted with great rigor. 

His retreat at Antwerp was hidden for some time from those who had 
marked him for their prey. But at length, in 1534, he was betrayed by the 
spies employed by Henry VIII. and his council, and imprisoned. Every thing 
was done by the English merchants at Antwerp to release him, and one by 
the name of Thomas Pointz, was so ardent in his cause that he went to 
England in person, to exert what influence he could in his favor. In the 
mean time the noble martyr was not inactive, but while in prison prepared 
another edition of the Testament, pecuharly adapted to the agricultural 
laborers, thus fulfilUng his pledge that the "ploughboys" should have it 
for themselves. 

But his invaluable life was now drawing to a close. The formalities of a 
trial were gone through ; he was condemned for heresy ; and in September, 
1536, he was brought out of prison to suffer the dreadful sentence, — burning 
at the stake. In that appalling moment he exhibited the firmness and resig- 
nation only to be found in the certain confidence of having his portion with 
those "shining ones" (in Bunyan's phrase) who had come out of great tribu- 
lation, and who had 

for Jesus' sake, 



Writhed on the rack, or blackened at the stake. 

While the horrid preparations of death and of burning were going on in full 
view around him, his last thoughts were turned upon the welfare of that 
country which had driven him forth a fugitive ; and his dying voice was that 
of intercession for his royal persecutor. " O Lord, open the King of Eng- 
land's eyes," were his well known words at the stake. 

Rome thundered death, but Tyndale's dauntless eye, 
Looked in death's face and smiled, death standing by. 
In spite of Rome, for England's faith he stood, 
And in the flames he sealed it with his blood. 

It rests on indubitable evidence that Tyndale's voice was hardly hushed 
in death, before his last prayer was answered in a remarkable manner; for 



1509-1547.] TYNDALE. 47 

that capricious tyrant soon issued an injunction, ordering that the Bible 
should be placed in every church for the free use of the people. 

Tyndale's translation of the New Testament is admirable both for style 
and accuracy ; and our present version has very closely followed it through- 
out. To use the words of a profound modern scholar, ^ "It is astonishing 
how little obsolete the language of it is, even at this day ; and, in point of 
perspicuity and noble simplicity, propriety of idiom, and purity of style, no 
English version has yet surpassed it." The following is a fair specimen of 
this translation.^ 

" And ^marke' A Certayne Lawere stode vp' and tempted hym 
sayinge : Master what shall I do' to inheret eternall lyfe ? He 
sayd vnto him : What ys written in the lawe ? Howe redest 
thou ? And he answered and sayde : Thou shalt love thy lorde 
god' wyth all thy hert' and wyth all thy soule' and with all thy 
strengthe' and with all thy mynde : and thy neighbour as thy 
sylfe. And he sayd vnto hym: Thou hast answered right. 
This do and thou shalt live. He willynge to iustifie hym silfe' 
sayde vnto Jesus : Who ys then my neighbour. 

"Jesus answered and sayde: A certayne man descended 
from Jerusalem into Jericho' And fell ^into the hondes off 
theves' whych robbed hym off his rayment and wonded hym' 
and departed levynge him halfe deed. And yt chaunsed that 
there cam a certayne preste that same waye' and sawe hym' 
and passed by. And lyke wyse a levite' when he was come 
neye to the place' went and loked on hym and passed by. 
Then a certayne Samaritane as he iornyed cam neye vnto 
hym and behelde hym and had compassion on hym and cam 
to hym and bounde vppe hys wondes and poured in wyne 
and oyle and layed him on his beaste and brought hym to a 
common %ostry and Mrest him. And on the morowe when 
he departed he toke out two pence and gave them to the host 
and said vnto him. Take care of him and whatsoever thou 
spendest above this when I come agayne I Avill recompence 
the. Which nowe of these thre thynkest thou was neighbour 
unto him that fell into the theves hondes ? And he answered : 
he that shewed mercy on hym. Then sayd Jesus vnto 
hym. Goo and do thou lyke wyse." 

1 Dr. Geddes. ^ See a beautiful edition of Tyndale's Testament, by Rev. 
J. P. Dabney, with an interesting memoir, published at Andover, Mass. 
3 Beholde. * Among thieves. ^ inne. « Made provision for him. 



48 WYATT. [henry VIII. 



SIR THOMAS WYATT, 1503—1542. 

Sir Thomas Wyatt,' whose poems are generally published with those 
of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, as they were cotemporaries and warm 
personal friends, as well as among the first improvers of the English lan- 
guage, was born in Allington Castle in Kent, in 1503, and educated at Cam- 
bridge. He was early distinguished as a polite and elegant scholar, and 
was remarkable alike for his uncommon beauty of person ; for his dexterity 
and address in arms ; and for his superior attainments in all the softer 
arts of peace. To a critical knowledge of the ancient classics, he added the 
French, ItaUan, and Spanish, which he spoke with fluency and elegance. 
But what distinguished him most was, his reputation as a poet, and the 
charm of his conversation. His wit is said to have been inexhaustible, and 
his readiness at repartee such as astonished every one who heard him. 

Possessed of these advantages, it was no wonder that Wyatt should ingra- 
tiate himself with the king, and become a very general favorite at court. 
He was sent on some important foreign missions, and acquitted himself with 
great honor. The last, however, proved fatal to him : for having been 
sent by the king to Falmouth to conduct the ambassador of the Emperor 
Charles V. to court, he rode too fast, took ill of a fever, and died in Oc- 
tober, 1542, in the thirty-ninth year of his age. 

He was a man in every respect entitled to more than common admira- 
tion ; and he obtained the praise of uniting in his character things in them- 
selves seemingly discordant ; brilliant wit, and purity of thought ; the ease 
of the courtier and the gravity of the Christian. But what distinguished 
him more than even his talents or the powers of his wit, was a certain 
generous contempt of vice, and an exalted love of virtue, which seems to 
have been the great bond of union between the noble hearted Surrey and 
himself. These were not with him qualities merely speculative ; they were 
vital principles, perpetually pressing forward into action. " God and good- 
ness," to use his own expression, " were ever the foundation of his conduct;" 
so that it was not possible to know him, and converse with him, without feel- 
ing the same magnanimous longing after moral excellence by which he him- 
self was animated. Thus he ennobled learning, and rendered poetry and polite 
attainments honorable, by making them subservient to the cause of Virtue 
and Religion. 

"the lover complaineth the unkindness of his LOVE.2 

" My lute, aM^ake ! perform the last 
Labour, that thou and I shall v^^aste, 

'■ See the admirable edition of the Works of Surrey and Wyatt, by George 
F. Nott, D. D., two volumes, quarto, London, 1816. 

^ This poem is of singular merit, and as Dr. Todd remarks, " is one of the 
most elegant amatory odes in our language." The lute corresponded nearly 



1509-1547.] WYATT. 49 

And end that I have now begun ; 

For when this song is sung and past, 

My kite ! be still, for I have done. 

As to be heard where ear is none ; 
As lead, to grave in marble stone,^ 

My song may pierce her heart as soon : 
Should we then sing, or sigh, or moan? 

No, no, my lute ! for I have done. 

The rock doth not so cruelly 
Repulse the waves continually. 

As she my suit and affection ; 
So that I am past remedy ; 

Whereby my lute and I have done. 

Proud of the spoil that thou hast got 
Of simple hearts, thorough Love's shot, 

By whom, unkind, thou hast them won; 
Think not he hath his boM^ forgot, 

Although my lute and I have done. 

Vengeance may fall on thy disdain. 
That makest but game of earnest pain. 

Trow not alone under the sun, 
Unquit to cause thy lover's plain, 

Although my lute and I have done. 

May chance thee lie wither'd, and old, 
The winter nights that are so cold. 

Plaining in vain unto the moon : 
Thy wishes then dare not be told ; 

Care then who list ! for I have done. 

And then may chance thee to repent 
The time that thou hast lost and spent, 

To cause thy lover's sigh, and swoon : 
• Then shalt thou know beauty but lent, 

And wish and want, as I have done. 

Now cease, my lute ! this is the last 
Labour, that thou and I shall waste, 

And ended is that I begun ; 
Now is this song both sung and past : 

My lute ! be still, for I have done. 

to the modern guitar, and every person of good education played upon it. 
Tally excelled on it. 

* That is, it would be more easy for lead, which is the softest of metals, to 
engrave characters on hard marble, than it is for me to make impression on 
her obdurate heart. To grave — to make an impression upon. 



50 WYATT. [henry VIII. 



THE LOVER PRAYETH NOT TO BE DISDAINED, REFUSED, MIS- 
TRUSTED, NOR FORSAKEN. 

Disdain me not without desert, 

Nor leave me not so suddenly ; 
Since well ye wot that in my heart 

I mean ye not but honestly. 

Refuse me not without cause "u^hy, 

Nor think me not to be unjvist ; 
Since that by lot of fantasy, 

This careful knot needs knit I must. 

Mistrust me not, though some there be, 

That fain would spot my steadfastness. 
Believe them not, since that ye see 

The proof is not as they express. 

Forsake me not, till I deserve, 

Nor hate me not till I offend ; 
Destroy me not, till that I swerve ; 

But since ye know what I intend.* 

Disdain me not, that am your own : 

Refuse me not, that am so true ; 
Mistrust me not, till all be known ; 

Forsake me not now for no new.2 

A DESCRIPTION OF SUCH A ONE AS HE WOULD LOVE. 

A face that should content me wond'rous well, 

Should not be fair,3 but lovely to behold : 
With gladsome chere, all grief for to expell ; 

With sober looks so would I that it should 
Speak without words, such words as none can tell ; 

The tress also should be of crisped^ gold. 
With wit, and these, might chance I might be tigd. 
And knit again the knot that should not slide. 

' Dr. Nott says that but in this line means "unless," without at all ex- 
plaining its whole difficulty. But, in old writers, is used in the sense of with- 
out, and since or seethan as they spelled it, in the sense of seeing that, for 
which it is a contraction : the full meaning of this line, in connection with the 
other, I take to be, " Without you destroy me, seeing that or after that you 
know my honest intentions." 

* An ellipsis, for no new lover. 

^ " Fair''' here means regularly beautiful. The sense is, *' The face that 
is to captivate me must not be regularly beautiful, but one that has a lovely 
turn of expression." 

^ " Crisped" means short curling ringlets, which were artificially produced 
by curling irons. Pope does not introduce these in his description of the 
toilet in the " Rape of the Lock." 

'< Puffs, powders, patches. Bibles, billet-doux." 

We rather smile now at the taste for "golden" colored hair. 



1509-15^7.] HOWARD. 51 



OF THE MEAN AND SURE ESTATE. 

Stand whoso list, upon the slipper top 

Of high estate ; and let me here rejoice, 
And nse me quiet without let or stop, 

Unknown in court, that hath such brackish joys. 
In hidden place so let my days forth pass; 

That when my years be done withouten noise, 
I may die aged, after the common trace : 

For him death grip'th right hard by the crop, 
That is much known of other, and of himself, alas ! 
Doth die unknown, dased with dreadful face. 



OF HIS RETURN FROM SPAIN. 

Tagus, farewell ! that westward with thy streams 
Turns up the grains of gold already tried ;' 

With spur and sail, for I go seek the Thames, 

Gain ward the sun that sheweth her wealthy pride : 

And to the town which Brutus sought by dreams,2 
Like bended moon, doth lend her lusty side. 

My King, my Country, alone for whom I live. 

Of mighty Love the wings for this me give.3 



HENRY HOWARD, 1516—1547. 

EARL OF SURREY. 

Henry Howabd, Earl of Surrey, the eldest son of Thomas Howard, Eari 
of Surrey, and Lady Elizabeth Stafford, was born about 15] 6. We say 
about that year, for we are as ignorant of the precise date of his birth as we 
are of all that relates to his early education, and the habits of his early life. 
In 1535 his marriage with the Lady Frances Vere was publicly solemnized, 
from which time what relates to his personal history is authentic. In 1540 
he began to take an active part in public affairs, being sent by the king over 
to the continent, to see that the English towns and garrisons were in a 
proper state of defence against the threatened attack of the French. In 
April, 1542, he was made Knight of the Garter, which was esteemed a 
great mark of royal favor ; and in October of the same year, he bore an 
active and leading part in the expedition against Scotland. In 1544 he acted 

* " Gold already tried," pure gold. 

^ This alludes to the old story, that Brutus, the third in descent from 
jEneas, on quitting his native land, sailed for parts unknown, landed at 
Albion, proceeded inland, and founded London on the north side of the 
Thames, which he called Troynovante, as many early English writers call it. 

' The meaning of this is, '•' The love I bear my king and my country, 
give me wings for my journey." 



52 HOWARD. [henry YIII. 

as field marshal of the EngHsh forces on the continent, and in that and the 
two succeeding years, he greatly distinguished himself by his valor and 
skill, at the sieges of Landrecy and Boulogne. 

But as his popularity increased his interest declined with the king, whose 
caprices and jealousies grew more violent with his years and infirmities. 
The brilliancy of Surrey's character, the celebrity he had acquired in mili- 
tary science in his command on the continent, his general abilities, his wit, 
learning, and affability were viewed with suspicion by the Earl of Hertford, 
the king's brother, who, as he saw the monarch's end approaching, was 
anxious to secure to himself the protectorship during Edward the Sixth's 
minority ; and he saw that the only rival he had to fear was the great and 
good Earl of Surrey. Accordingly he did all he could to poison the mind of 
the king against him ; and in April, 1546, he was recalled from the con- 
tinent, imprisoned in Windsor Castle,' and in December of the same year 
was sent to the Tower. He was soon brought to trial. The accusations 
against him were of the most frivolous character, the chief of which was, 
shameful to relate, brought against him by his own sister, the base, the 
unnatural Duchess of Richmond. She said that he w^ore on his arms, 
instead of a duke's coronet, what "seemed, to her judgment, much like a 
close crown;" and a cipher, "which she took to be the king's cipher, H. 
R." On this did she intimate that her brother was guilty of high treason. 
Surrey defended himself with great spirit and ability, and as to the main 
point in the indictment, showed conclusively that his ancestors had, of a 
long continuance, worn the same coat of arms, as well within the kingdom 
as without ; and that it had constantly been borne by himself in Henry's 
presence. But all was of no avail: the ruling influences, with Hertford at 
their head, determined that he should be convicted. Accordingly he was 
pronounced guilty, and was beheaded on the 19th of January, 1547. 

Thus fell, at the early age of thirty, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey ; a 
man of such elevated virtues, and such rare endowments, that his untimely 
■death must, with every one, be a subject of deep regret; for what might he 
not have done for English Literature, had his life been spared ?2 The endow- 
ments of his mind were various; his acquirements great. There was no 
polite or manly accomplishment in which he did not excel. He was perfect 
master of the Latin, the French, the Italian, and the Spanish languages. He 
had a vigorous intellect, and a quick and ready wit. He was fond of lite- 
rary fame, and studious of literary excellence: but he beheld it without 
envy in others. His own genius was of a moral and contemplative cast. 
His noble mind never stooped to anything that would inflame passion, or 
solicit improper desire. It is his peculiar praise that not a single thought, 
not a single expression can be found in all his writings, to wound the nicest 
sense of modesty, or to degrade the dignity of poetry. To crown all, he 
had the highest reverence for religion, and the Scriptures were equally his 

' Where he wrote the first poem here inserted. ^ Warton says, *' For 
justness of thought, correctness of style, and purity of expression, he may 
ustly be pronounced the first English classical poet." 



1509-1547.] HOWARD. 53 

consolation and delight : by these he strengthened the moral principles which 
glowed so strong within him ; and confirmed in his heart that generous con- 
tempt of vice which is experienced by none but men of noble minds. Such 
was the Earl of Surrey.' 



PASSED IN FORMER YEARS. 

So cruel prison how could beticle, alas ! 

As proud Windsor 1 where I in lust and joy, 
With a King's son. ray childish^ years did pass, 

In greater feast than Priam's sons of Troy. 
Where each sweet place returns a taste full sour. 

The large green courts, where we M'ere wont to hove,"^ 

^ I cannot but insert ,here a portion of Dr. Nott's very discriminating and 
just comparison between Surrey and Wyatt. " They were men whose 
minds may be said to have been cast in the same mould, for they differ only 
in those minuter shades of character, which must always exist in human 
nature. In their love of virtue, and their instinctive hatred and contempt of 
vice, in their freedom from personal jealousy, in their thirst after knowledge 
and intellectual improvement, in nice observation of nature, promptitude to 
action, intrepidity and fondness for romantic enterprises, in magnificence and 
liberality, in generous support of others, and high-spirited neglect of them- 
selves, in constancy, in friendship, and tender susceptibility of affections of a 
still warmer nature, and in everything connected with sentiment and prin- 
ciple, they were one and the same ; but when those qualities branch out into 
particulars, they will be found in some respects to differ. 

" Wyatt had a deeper and more accurate penetration into the characters of 
men than Surrey had ; hence arises the difference in their satires. Surrey, in 
his satire against the citizens of London, deals only in reproach ; Wyatt in 
his, abounds with irony, and those nice touches of ridicule which make us 
ashamed of our faults, and therefore often silently effect amendment. Sur- 
rey's observation of nature was minute ; but he directed it towards the works 
of nature in general, and the movements of the passions, rather than to the 
foibles and characters of men ; hence it is that he excels in the description of 
moral objects, and is always tender and pathetic. In Wyatt-s Complaint we 
hear a strain of manly grief which commands attention, and we listen to it 
with respect for the sake of him that suffers. Surrey's distress is painted in 
such natural terms, that we make it our own, and recognize in his sorrows, 
emotions which we are conscious of having felt ourselves." 

2 This poem was written about 1546, when Surrey Avas imprisoned at 
Windsor, not long after his return from Boulogne. See notice of his life. 
•'' It is a poem.," says Dr. Nott, " of singular beauty, and may be ranked 
among the most perfect compositions in our language." 

^ The words '•' child," "childish," " childhood," had in former times a much 
larger meaning than they now have. Both Chaucer and Spenser use these 
words as applied to " early manhood." The phrase, " childish years," there- 
fore, means to describe the time when the Duke of Richmond and himself 
were just entering on manhood. A.t the time of his residence in Windsor. 
1534, Surrey was about eighteen and the Duke of Richmond about fifteen. 

* " To hove," to linger about a place in expectation or hope : same as " to 
hover." 



54 HOWARD. [henry VIII. 

With eyes cast up unto the Maiden's tower,' 

And easy sighs, su^ch as folk draw in love. 
The stately seats, the ladies bright of hue. 

The dances short, long tales of great delight ; 
With words, and looks, that tigers could but rue,2 

Where each of us did plead the other's right. 
The palme-play,3 where, despoiled* for the game, 

With dazed eyes oft we by gleams of love, 
Have niiss"d the ball, and got sight of our dame, 

To bait^ her eyes, which kept the leads above.^ 
The gravel'd grouncV with sleeves tied on the helm ,8 

On foaming horse with swords and friendly hearts ; 
With chere,9 as though one should another whelm. 

Where we have fought, and chased oft with darts. 
The secret groves, which oft we made resovind 

Of pleasant plaint, and of our ladies' praise ; 
Recording soft what gTace each one had found. 

What hope of speed, what dread of long delays. 
The Avild forest, the fclothed holts with green;'" 

With reins aA'ailed," and swiftly-breathed horse, 
With cry of hounds, and merry blasts between, 

Where we did chase the fearful hart of force. 
The void walls'2 eke that harbour"d us each night: 

Wherewith, alas ! revive within my breast 
The sweet accord, such sleeps as yet delight; 

The pleasant dreams, the quiet bed of rest ; 
The secret thoughts, imparted with such trust ; 

The wanton talk, '3 the divers change of play; 

' " Maiden's tower," that part of the castle where the ladies of the court 
had their apartments. 

2 <' Such looks and entreaties as might have moved tigers to pity.-' 
== "Palme-play," a game played with a ball and hand, so called because 
the ball was hit with the "palm :" it was also played with the bat, and simi- 
lar to " tennis." 

* " Despoiled," stripped for the game. ^ a fo bait," to allure, to attract. 

•^ " Which kept the leads above." The word " lead" is used by old writ- 
ers for a flat roof covered with lead, and the plural " leads" is therefore 
probably used for the walks or galleries (covered with lead) around the upper 
stories of the building, where the ladies might sit and see the game played in 
safety. 

■ " The gravel'd ground," the space enclosed, made level with fine gravel. 

* It was a general practice among ancient knights to tie to their helmets a 
sleeve or glove, received from tlieir lady-love, which they wore not only in 
tilts and tournam.ents, but even in battle. 

^ " Chere" is used by all the old poets for " the look," " the expression of 
the countenance." 

'° "The clothed holts with green," the high hills clothed with verdure. 

" " Reins availed," mean slackened, so as to allow the horse to go at 
full speed. 

^^ " Void walls," the walls of those chambers now desolate, which were 
wont each night to receive us. 

13 «f "Wanton talk," playful conversation. The word " wanton" was used 
by early writers, as descriptive of the sportiveness and innocence of infancy. 



1509-1547.] HOWARD. 55 

The friendship sworn, each promise kept so just, 
Wherewith we past the winter nights away. 

O place of bliss ! renewer of my woes ! 

Give me account, where is my noble fere 1 

Whom in thy walls thou didst each night enclose ; 
To other lief ;• but unto me most dear. 



THE FRAILTY AND HURTFULNESS OF BEAUTY. 

Brittle beauty, that Nature made so frail, 

Whereof the gift is small, and shorter is the season : 
Flow'ring to-day, to-morrow apt to fail ; 

Tickle^ treasure, abhorred of reason : 
Dangerous to deal with, vain, of none avail ; 

Costly in keeping, past, not worth two peason f 
Slipperer in sliding, than is an eel's tail; 

Hard to obtain, once gotten never geason ;* 
Jewel of jeopardy,^ that peril doth assail; 

False and untrue, enticed oft to treason ; 
En'my to youth, that most men bewail ; 

Ah ! bitter sweet, infecting as the poison. 
Thou farest as the fruit that with the frost is taken ; 
To-day ready ripe, to-morrow all to shaken. 



IN PRAISE OF HIS LADY-LOVE COMPARED WITH ALL 0THERS.6 

Give place, ye lovers, here before 

That spent your boasts and brags in vain ; 

My lady's beauty passeth more 

The best of yours, I dare well say'n,? 

Than doth the sun the candle light. 

Or brightest day the darkest night. 

And thereto hath a troth as just 

As had Penelope the fair ; 
For what she saith ye may it trust, 

^ " Lief," spelled also leef and leve, is an adjective, meaning " dear." 
'' The person here alluded to by Surrey was probably his sister, the Lady 
Mary who was married to the Duke of Richmond." 

2 " Tickle," having no foundation, liable to sudden downfall. 

^ "Peason," the plural oi'peas. 

^ The word " geason," of which the derivation is unknown, is used by the 
old writers with different shades of meaning. Spenser employs it in the 
sense of " rare and uncommon." Here it seems to mean " something worth 
possessing:" for the sense of the passage is "once gotten not worth pos- 
sessing." 

' "Jewel of jeopardy ;" that is, a jewel which there is much danger of 
losing. 

•^ Warton says that this ode " possesses almost the ease and gallantry of 
Waller; the versification is correct ; the language polished; and the modu- 
lation musical." 

" "' Say'n" £or say, often thus used by the old writers. 



56 HOWARD. [henry VIII. 

As it by writing sealed were ; 
And Tirtaes hath she many mo', 
Than I with pen have skill to show. 

I could rehearse, if that I would, 

The whole effect of Nature's plaint, 
When she had lost the perfit mould, 

The like to whom sh e could not paint :' 
"With wringing hands, how she did cry. 
And what she said, I know it, I. 

I know she swore with raging mind, 

Her kingdom only set apart. 
There was no loss by law of kind 

That could have gone so near her heart j 
And this was chiefly all her pain ; 
" She could not make the like again." 

Sith Nature thus gave her the praise. 

To be the chiefest work she wrought 
In faith, methink! some better ways 

On your behalf might well be sought 
Than to compare, as ye have done. 
To match the candle with the sun. 



DESCRIPTION OF SPRING.2 

The soote3 season, that bud and bloom forth brings, 

With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale, 
The nightingale with feathers new she sings; 

The turtle to her make* hath told her tale. 
Summer is come, for every spray now springs ; 

The hart hath hung his old head on the pale,^ 
The buck in brake his winter coat he flings ; 

The fishes flete^ with new repaired scale ; 
The adder all her slough away she flings; 

The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale ;' 
The busy bee her honey now she mings ;S 

Winter is "worn that was the flowers' bale. 
And thus I see among these, pleasant things 
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs, 

^ To "paint" in Surrey's age meant to mould, to form or fashion as the 
sculptor does. 

2 <' This sonnet is perhaps the most beautiful specimen of descriptive 
poetry in our language." Dr. Nott. 

^ " Soote" was continued in use long after its substitute sweet was intro- 
duced. ■* " Make," synonymous with ??zcrfe. 

5 The uneasiness experienced by this animal before he sheds his horns, 
leads him to rub his forehead against the paling of the park. 

■5 " Flete" is r.ot fleet, to "pass rapidly by," but nearer to our " float," 
except that it means what swims through the water as well as on its surface. 

^ This was not only the old way of spelling small, but also of pronouncing 
it, with the long a, as in hate. ^ ]\Iingles. 



1553-1558.] LATIMER. 57 



OF THE HAPPY LIFE AND THE MEANS TO ATTAIN IT. 

JNIartial, the things that do attahi 

The happy life, be these, T find ; 
The riches left, not got Avith pain ; 

The fruitful ground, the quiet mind : 

The equal friend, no grudge, no strife ; 

No charge of rule, nor governance ; 
Without disease, the healthful life ; 

The household of continuance :* 

The mean diet, no delicate fare ; 

True Avisdom join'd with simpleness ; 
The night discharged of all care, 

Where wine the wit may not oppress: 

The faithful wife. %\-ithout debate : 
Such sleeps as ma)' beguile the night. 

Content thee with thine own estate; 
Ne "^■^"ish for Death, ne fear his might. 



HUGH LATIMER, 1475—1555. 

Hu&H Latimek, Bishop of Worcester, was born about the year 1475. 
Being an only son, and of quick parts, his father, a respectable yeoman, 
resolved to make him a scholar, and after due preparation he entered Cam- 
bridge. He was a zealous papist till the age of thirty, when he was con- 
verted by Thomas Bilney,^ and began with great zeal to propagate the 
opinions of the reformers. During the reign of Edward VI. (1547 — 1553) 
he was pre-eminent among his zealous cotemporaries in spreading the doc- 
trines of the Reformation, and in conjunction with Cranmer, was one of the 
principal instruments in effecting its establishment. But in the persecutions 
of Mary, he was singled out as one of the most desired victims of popish 
vengeance. He might have made his escape, and the opportunity which 
was given him seems to have been designed ; but Latimer had the true 
spirit of a martyr, and determined to remain at his post of duty. As he 
passed through Smithfield on his way to London after his arrest, he ex- 
claimed, " this place has long groaned for me." After a tedious imprison- 
ment he persisted in refusing to subscribe to certain articles which were 
submitted to him, and he was led forth to his horrid death, October 16th, 
1556. 

With a staff in his hand, a pair of spectacles hanging at his Sreast, and a 

^ This line probably means, an " household" or family that is not of recent 
establishment, and promises to be of duration. 

- At first himself also a Romish priest; but he was afterwards burnt for 
" heresy." 



58 LATIMER. [mARY 

Bible at his girdle he walked to the place of execution, with his fellow 
martyr/ Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London. On their way Ridley out- 
went Latimer some way before ; but he, looking back, espied Latimer com- 
ing after, and said to him, " O be ye there ?" " Yea," said Latimer, " have 
after as fast as I can follow." Ridley first entered the lists, dressed in his 
clerical habit ; and soon after, Latimer, as usual, in his prison garb. Lati- 
mer now suffered the keeper to pull off his prison-garb, and then he appeared 
in a shroud. Being ready, he fervently recommended his soul to God, and 
then delivered himself to the executioner, saying to Ridley these prophetical 
words: "Be of good cheer, master Ridley, and play the man; we shall 
this day kindle such a torch in England as I trust in God shall never be 
extinguished." Two bags of gunpowder were fastened under his arms, the 
explosion of which instantaneously deprived him of life. At this moment a 
quantity of blood seemed to gush from his heart, as if all the blood in his 
body had been there collected. But poor Ridley was less fortunate. His 
extremities were consumed to the trunk, before the fire affected his vitals, 
and he died in lingering anguish. 

A YEOMAN OF HENRY SEVENTH'S TIME. 

My father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own, 
only he had a farm of 31. or 41. by year at the uttermost, and 
hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men. He had 
walk for an hundred sheep, and my mother milked 30 kine. 
He was able, and did find the king a harness, with himself and 
his horse, while he came to the place that he should receive the 
king's wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness 
when he went to Blackheath field. He kept me to school, or 
else I had not been able to have preached before the king's 
majesty now. He married my sisters with 51. or 20 nobles 
a-piece, so that he brought them up in godliness and fear of 
God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbours. And some 
alms he gave to the poor, and all this did he of the said farm. 
Where he that now hath it, payeth 161. by the year, or more, 
and is not able to do any thing for his prince, for himself, nor 
for his children, or give a cup of drink to the poor. 

^ The word "martyr" has undergone quite a change from its original 
signification, which was " a witness." Now it means one who dies for 
the truth, whereas formerly it meant one who lived for the same ; " And ye 
shall be witnesses {y.dLe^tvej!:, 'martyrs') unto me both in Jerusalem," &c. Acts 
i. 8. It ne»d hardly be said how the meaning has degenerated, since it 
requires much stronger faith, and higher fortitude to be a Zitu'?ig- " witness" than 
a dying " witness" for the truth, against popular errors. A man dies a " mar- 
tyr" to the cause of righteousness, and it is done ; all sense of feeling is 
over : he lives a " martyr" to the same, and day after day, for years, and it 
may be for his life, he experiences the neglect, the reproaches, the jeers, the 
persecutions of the enemies of truth and justice. 



1553-1558.] LATIMER. 59 

In my time my poor father was as diligent to teach me to 
shoot, as to learn me any other thing, and so I think other 
men did their children : he taught me how to draw, how to lay 
my body in my bow, and not to draw with strength of arms as 
divers other nations do, but with strength of the body. I had 
my bows bought me according to my age and strength ; as I 
increased in them, so my bows were made bigger and bigger, 
for men shall never shoot well, except they be brought up in 
it: it is a worthy game, a wholesome kind of exercise, and 
much commended in physic. 

HIS EXAMINATION BEFORE THE BISHOPS. 

I was once in examination before five or six bishops, 
where I had much turmoiling; every week thrice I came to 
examination, and many snares and traps were laid to get some- 
thing. Now God knoweth, I was ignorant of the law, but that 
God gave me answer and wisdom what I should speak. It was 
God indeed, for else I had never escaped them. At the last I 
was brought forth to be examined, into a chamber hanged with 
arras, where I was wont to be examined, but now at this time 
the chamber was somewhat altered. For whereas before there 
was wont ever to be a fire in the chimney, now the fire was 
taken away, and an arras hanging hanged over the chimney, 
and the table stood near the chimney's end : so that I stood 
between the table and the chimney's end. There was among 
these bishops that examined me, one with whom I have been 
very familiar, and took him for my great friend, an aged man, 
and he sate next the table's end. 

Then among all other questions he put forth one, a very 
subtle and crafty one, and such a one indeed as I could not 
think so great danger in. And I should make answer: I pray 
you, master Latimer, saith he, speak out: I am very thick of 
hearing, and here be many that sit far off. I marvelled at this, 
that I was bidden speak out, and began to misdeem, and gave 
an ear to the chimney. And, sir, there I heard a pen walking 
in the chimney behind the cloth. They had appointed one 
there to write all my answers, for they made sure work that I 
should not start from them; there was no starting from them. 

God was my good Lord, and gave me answer; I could 
never else have escaped it. The question was this: Master 
Latimer, do you not think on your conscience, that you have 
been suspected of heresy ? A subtle question, a very subtle 
question. There was no holding of peace would serve. To 



60 LATIMER. [mARY 

hold my peace had been to grant myself faulty. To answer it 
was every way full of danger. But God, which alway had 
given me answer, helped me, or else I could never have escaped 
it, and delivered me from their hands. 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 

Here is now an argument to prove the matter against the 
preachers. Here was preaching against covetousness all the 
last year, and the next summer followed rebellion : Ergo, preach- 
ing against covetousness was the cause of the rebellion — a 
goodly argument. Here now I remember an argument of 
master More's, which he bringeth in a book that he made 
against Bilney ; and here by the way I will tell you a merry 
toy. Master More was once sent in commission into Kent, to 
help to try out (if it might be) what was the cause of Goodwin 
Sands, and the shelf that stopped up Sandwich haven. Thither 
cometli master More, and calleth the country afore him, such 
as were thought to be men of experience, and men that could 
of likelihood best certify him of that matter concerninfr the 
stopping of Sandwich haven. Among others came in before 
him an old man, with a white head, and one that was thought 
to be litdc less than a hundred years old. When master More 
saw this aged man, he thought it expedient to hear him say his 
mind in this matter (for being so old a man, it was likely that 
he knew most of any man in that presence and company). So 
master More called this old aged man unto him, and said ; 
Father, (said he,) tell me if you can, what is the cause of this 
great arising of the sands and shelves here about this haven, the 
which stop it up, that no ships can arrive here? Ye are the 
eldest man I can espy in all this company, so that if any man 
can tell any cause of it, ye of likelihood can say most to it, or 
at leastwise, more than any man here assembled. Yea for- 
sooth, good master, (quoth this old man,) for I am well nigh a 
hundred years old, and no man here in this company any thing 
near unto mine age. Well then, (quoth master More,) how 
say you in this matter ? What think you to be the cause of 
these shelves and flats that stop up Sandwich haven? For- 
sooth sir, (quoth he,) I am an old man; I think that Tenterton- 
steeple is the cause of Goodwin Sands. For I am an old man, 
sir, (quoth he,) and I may remember the building of Tenterton- 
steeple, and I may remember when there was no steeple at all 
there. And before that Tenterton-steeple was in building, there 
was no manner of speaking of any flats or sands that stopped 



1553-1558.] CHEKE. 61 

the haven ; and therefore I think that Tenterton-steeple is the 
cause of the destroying and decay of Sandwich haven. And 
so to my purpose, is preaching of God's word the cause of 
rebellion, as Tenterton-steeple was cause that Sandwich haven 
is decayed. 



SIR JOHN CHEKE, 1514—1557. 

In the year 1540, Henry VIII. founded a Greek professorship at Cam- 
bridge, of which Cheke was elected the first professor, when only twenty- 
six years of age ; so early was he distinguished for his classical attainments. 
In 1544 he was appointed tutor to Prince Edward,^ who, on his accession to 
the throne, rewarded him with a pension of a hundred marks, with a grant 
of several lands and manors, and in 1551 conferred on him the honor of 
knighthood. Sir John was a zealous protestant ; in consequence of which 
he vvas severely persecuted by the bigoted Mary, twice imprisoned in the 
Tower, stript of his whole substance, and ultimately reduced to that dilemma 
which tried the stoutest hearts — " Either turn or burn." His rehgious zeal 
was not proof against this fiery ordeal, and he recanted. His property was 
now restored ; but his recantation was followed by such bitterness of re- 
morse, that he survived it but a short time, dying in 1557, at the early age 
of forty -three. 

The period in which Cheke flourished is highly interesting to letters. 
His influence was very great in promoting a taste for classical and philologi- 
cal learning. He introduced a new method of pronouncing Greek, which, 
notwithstanding the violent fulminations of the papal clergy, ultimately pre- 
vailed and still prevails. We are also very much indebted to him for the 
improvement of our own language. He recommended and practised a more 
minute attention to the meaning of words and phrases, and adopted a more 
skilful arrangement of them in composition. Before him, the sentences 
were long, and often involved. He used short sentences, and wrote whh 
greater precision, perspicuity, and force of style than his predecessors. 

His works were numerous, but they chiefly consisted of Latin translations 
from the Greek. Almost his only Enghsh work extant is his tract, entitled 
" The Hurt of Sedition." In the summer of 1549 a formidable rebellion 
broke out in many of the counties in England. The rebels in the western 
part favored the papal religion, which they were desirous to restore. These 
Sir John addresses thus : 

Ye rise for religion. What religion taught you that ? If ye 

^ To this Milton alludes in one of his sonnets: 

" Thy age like ours, soul of Sir John Cheke, 
Hated not learning worse than toad or asp, 
When thou taught'st Cambridge and King Edward Greek." 



62 CHEKE. [ELIZABETH 

were offered persecution for religion, ye ought to flee. So 
Christ teacheth you, and yet you intend to fight. If 5"e would 
stand in the truth, ye ought to suffer like martyrs ; and ye 
would slay like tyrants. Thus for religion, ye keep no reli- 
gion, and neither will follow the council of Christ, nor the con- 
stancy of martyrs. Why rise ye for religion ? Have ye any 
thing contrary to God's book ? Yea, have ye not all things 
agreeable to God's word ? But the new [religion] is different 
from the old ; and therefore ye will have the old. If ye mea- 
sure the old by truth, ye have the oldest. If ye measure the 
old by fancy, then it is hard, because men's fancies change, to 
give that is old. Ye will have the old stile. Will ye have 
any older than that as Christ left, and his apostles taught, and 
the first church did use ? Ye will have that the canons do 
establish. Why that is a great deal younger than that ye have 
of later time, and newlier invented ; yet that is it that ye de- 
sire. And do ye prefer the bishops of Rome afore Christ? 
Men's inventions afore God's law ? The newer sort of wor- 
ship before the older ? Ye seek no religion ; ye be deceived ; 
ye seek traditions. They that teach you, blind you; that so 
instruct you, deceive you. If ye seek what the old doctors 
say, yet look what Christ, the oldest of all, saith. For he 
saith, "before Abraham was made I am." If ye seek the 
truest way, he is the very truth. If ye seek the readiest way, 
he is the very way. If ye seek everlasting life, he is the very 
life. What religion would ye have other how than his reli- 
gion ? You would have the Bibles in again. It is no mervail; 
your blind guides should lead you blind still. * * 

But why should ye not like that [religion] which God's 
word establisheth, the primitive church hath authorized, the 
greatest learned men of this realai have drawn the whole con- 
sent of, the parliament hath confirmed, the king's majesty hath 
set forth ? Is it not truly set out ? Can ye devise any truer 
than Christ's apostles used ? Ye think it is not learnedly 
done. Dare ye, commons, take upon you more learning than 
the chosen bishops and clerks of this realm have ? * * 

Learn, learn to know this one point of religion, that God 
will be worshipped as he hath prescribed, and not as we have 
devised. And that his will is wholly in the scriptures, which 
be full of God's spirit, and profitable to teach the truth. 



1558-1603.] HEYAvooD. 63 



JOHN HEYWOOD,— 1565. 



THE DRAMA. 



The name of John Heywood introduces us at once to that department of 
Literature, in which the EngUsh have excelled all the other nations of the 
world — the Drama. It is impossible to fix any precise date for the origin of 
the English Drama. In tracing its history, however, we must make four 
divisions — the Miracle Plays — the Moral Flays— the Interludes — and the 
Legitimate Drama. 

The Miracle Plays. It would appear that, at the dawn of modern civili- 
zation, most countries of Europe possessed a rude kind of theatrical enter- 
tainment, consisting of the principal supernatural erents of the Old and 
New Testaments, and of the history of the saints; whence they were called 
Miracles, or Miracle Plays. Some of their subjects were The Creation — 
The Fall of Man— The Flood— Abraham's Sacrifice— The Birth of Christ— 
His Baptism, &c. These plays were acted by the clergy, and were under their 
immediate management, for they maintained that they were favorable to the 
cause of religion. On the contrary, the language and the representations of 
these plays were indecorous and profane in the highest degree : and what 
must have been the state of society, when ecclesiastics patronized such 
scenes of blasphemy and pollution ! Let us hear no more about "the good 
old times," for " times" were doubtless far worse then than now. 

The next step in the progress of the Drama was the Moral Play. The 
Moral Plays v/ere dramas of which the characters were chiefly allegorical or 
abstract. They were certainly a great advance upon the Miracles, as they 
endeavored to convey sound moral lessons, and at the same time gave occa- 
sion to some poetical and dramatic ingenuity, in imaging forth the cha- 
racters, and assigning appropriate speeches to each. The only scriptural 
character retained in them, was the Devil. He was rendered as grotesque 
and hideous as possible by the mask and dress he wore. We learn that his 
exterior was shaggy and hairy, one of the characters mistaking him for a 
dancing bear. That he had a tail, if it required proof, is evident from the 
circumstance, that in one play, the other chief character, called Vice, asks 

^ We now enter upon the age of Queen Elizabeth, the age which has been 
fixed upon as the period when our language, shaking off with gigantic strength 
the incumbrances of rude antiquity, first developed its powers, and asserted 
its pretensions to classical estimation. ''From the authors which arose in 
the time of Elizabeth," (observes Dr. Johnson in the Preface to his Diction- 
ary,) •'•' a speech might be formed, adequate to all the purposes of use and ele- 
gance. If the language of theology were extracted from Hooker and the 
translation of the Bible; the terms of natural philosophy from Bacon ; the 
phrases of policy, war, and navigation, from Raleigh ; the dialectic of poetry 
and fiction from Spenser and Sydney ; and the diction of common life from 
Shakspeare, few ideas would be lost to mankind, for want of English words 
in which they might be expressed." 



64 HEYWOOD. [ELIZABETH 

him for a piece of it to make a fly trap. Thus, what would otherwise have 
been quite a sober performance, was rendered no Utile entertaining. 

The Interludes were something between the moral plays and the modern 
Drama. The Moral plays were frequent in the reign of Henry VI. (1422 — 
1461). In the reign of Henry VII. (1485— 15u9) they flourished in all their 
glory, and continued in force down to the latter half of the sixteenth century. 
But it was at length found that a real human being, with a human name, 
was better calculated to awaken the sympathies, and keep alive the atten- 
tion of an audience, and not less so to impress them with moral truths, 
than a being who only represented a notion of the mind. The substitution 
of these for the symbolical characters, gradually took place during the 
earlier part of the sixteenth century, and before its close the English drama, 
in the writings of Shakspeare, reached its highest excellence. 

One of the most successful writers of Interludes was John Hey wood, or 
as he was commonly called, "Merry John Heywood." He was a native of 
London, but the year of his birth is unknown. He studied for some time at 
Oxford, but did not take his degree. He was of a social, festive genius, 
the favorite of Henry VIII., and afterwards of his daughter. Queen Mary, 
who were delighted with his dramatic representations. It is rather singular 
that the latter should have been so much pleased, as Heywood exposed, in 
terms of great severity, the vicious lives of the ecclesiastics. The play 
which perhaps best illustrates the genius of Heywood, is that called the 
Four P's, which is a dialogue between a Palmer,* a Pardoner, a Poticary,'2 
and a Pedler. Four such knaves afforded so humorous a man as Heywood 
was, abundant materials for satire, and he has improved them to some ad- 
vantage. The piece opens with the Palmer, who boasts of his peregrina- 
tions to the Holy Land, to Rome, to Santiago in Spain, and to a score of 
other shrines. This boasting was interrupted by the Pardoner, who tells 
him that he has been foolish to give himself so much trouble, when he 
might have obtained the object of his journey — the pardon of his sins — at 
home. 

For at your door myself doth dwell 

Who could have saved your soul as M^ell, 

As all your wide wandering shall do, 

Though ye went thrice to Jericho. 

The Palmer will not hear his labors thus disparaged, and he thus exclaims 
to the impostor, the relic-vender ; 

Right seldom is it seen, or never, 

That truth and Pardoners dwell together. 

The Pardoner then rails at the folly of pilgrimages, and asserts in strong 
terms, the virtues of his spiritual nostrums. 

1 The name Palmer was given to those of the crusaders who returned 
from Palestine, from the branches of the palm tree, which they carried in 
commemoration of their journey. 

2 la early times the apothecary and physician were united in the same 
person. 



1558-1603.] HEYwooD. 65 

With small cost, and without any pain, 
These pardons bring them to heaven plain. 

The Poticary now speaks, and is resolved to have his share of the merit. Of 
what avail are all the wanderings of the one or the relics of the other, until 
the soul is separated from the body ? And who sends so many into the 
other world as the apothecary ? Except such as may happen to be hanged, 
(which for any thing he knows, may be the fate of the Palmer and Par- 
doner,) who dies by any other help than that of the apothecary. As, there- 
fore, it is he, he says, who fills heaven with inmates, who is so much entitled 
to the gratitude of mankind ! The Pardoner is here indignant, and asks 
what is the benefit of dying, and what, consequently, the use of an apothe- 
cary, even should he kill a thousand a day, to men who are not in a state of 
grace ? And what, retorts the other, would be the use of a thousand par- 
dons round the neck, unless people died ? The Poticary, who is the most 
sensible of the three, concludes that all of them are rogues, when the Pedlar 
makes his appearance. 

He, like his companions, commends his wares. How can there be any 
love without courtship ? And how can women be won without such tempt- 
ing gifts as are in his sack ? 

Who liveth in love and love would win, 
Even at this pack he must begin. 

He then displays his wares, and entreats them to buy : but the churchmen 
of that day were beggars, not buyers; and the Poticary is no less cunning. 
At length the Pardoner reverts to the subject of conversation, when the 
Pedlar entered, and in order to draw out the opinion of the last comer, states 
the argument between himself and his two companions. The Pedlar seems, 
at first, surprised that the profession of an apothecary is to kill men, and 
thinks the world may very well do without one ; but the other assures him 
he is under a mistake ; that the Poticary is the most useful, and for this 
notable reason, that when any man feels that his " conscience is ready," 
all he has to do is to send for the practitioner, who will at once dispatch him. 
Weary of their disputes for pre-eminence of merit and usefulness, the 
Pedlar proposes that the other three shall strive for the mastery by lying, 
and that the greatest liar shall be recognized as head of the rest. The task 
he imposes on them cannot, he says, be a heavy one, for all are used to it. 
They are each to tell a tale. The Poticary commences, and the Pardoner 
follows. Their lies are deemed very respectable, but the Palmer is to be 
victorious, as he ends his tale in these words : — 

Yet have I seen many a mile, 
And many a woman in the while ; 
And not one good city, town, or borough, 
In Christendom but I have been thorough : 
And this I would ye should understand, 
I have seen women, five hundred thousand ; 
Yet in all places where I have been, 
Of all the women that I have seen, 



66 ASCHAM. [ELIZABETH 

I never saw nor knew in my conscience, 
Any one woman out of patience. 

Nothing can exceed the surprise of the other three at this astounding asser- 
tion, except the ingenuity with which they are made to express — unwillingly 
yet involuntarily — the Palmer's superiority in the " most ancient and noble 
art of lying." 

Poticary. By the mass, there's a great lie ! 
Pardoner. I never heard a greater — by our Lady ! 
Pedlar. A greater ! nay, knew you any one so great? 

And so ends the old interlude of Merry John Hey wood, of the " Three 
P's." 



ROGER ASCHAM, 1515—1568. 

The name of Roger Ascham deservedly ranks high in English literature. 
He was born in 1515, and took his degree at the University of Cambridge 
at the age of nineteen. That he was pre-eminently skilled in the Greek 
language, is evident from the fact, that a few years after he left the Uni- 
versity he was invited by Sir John Cheke to become preceptor of the learned 
languages to Elizabeth ; which office he discharged for two years with great 
credit and satisfaction to himself, as well as to his illustrious pupil. Soon 
after this, he went abroad, and remained about three years in Germany. On 
his return he was selected to fill the office of Latin Secretary to Edward VI., 
but on the death of the king he retired to the University. On the accession 
of Elizabeth he was immediately distinguished, and read with the queen, 
some hours every day, in the Latin and Greek languages. In this office, 
and in that of Latin Secretary, he continued at court for the remainder of 
his life. He died in September, 1568, at the age of fifty-three. 

The two principal works of Ascham are the " Toxophilus" and "The 
School Master." The Toxophilus' is, as its name imports, a treatise upon 
Archery ; and the main design of Ascham in writing it was to apologize for 
the zeal with which he studied and practised the art of shooting, and to 
show the honor and dignhy of the art in all nations at all times, and its 
acknowledged utility not only in matters of war, but as an innocent and 
engaging pastime in times of peace. The whole work is in the dialogue 
form, the speakers being Toxophilus, a lover of archery, and Philologus, a 
student. After a very graceful introduction, Toxophilus proceeds to show 
that some relaxation and pastime are to be mingled with " sadde matters of 

1 From toxon (ro^ov) "a bow," B.Tid philos (^ixi'c) " a friend." The original 
title runs thus : — " Toxophilus, the Schole or Partitions of Shootinge, con- 
tayned in II Bookes. Written by Roger Ascham 1544, and now newly 
perused. Pleasaunt for all Gentlemen and Yeomen of Englande, for thevr 
pastime to reade, and profitable for theyr use to foliowe, both in Warre and 
Peace." 



1558-1603.] ASCHAM. 67 

the minde," a posidon which the studious Fhilologus endeavors to contro- 
vert,' 

PMlologus. — How much is to be given to the authority 
either of Aristotle or Tully, I cannot tell; this I am sure, 
which thing this fair wheat (God save it) maketh me remem- 
ber, that those husbandmen which rise earliest, and come latest 
home, and are content to have their dinner and other drinkings 
brought into the field to them, for fear of losing of time, have 
fatter barns in the harvest than they which will either sleep at 
noon time of the day, or else make merry with their neigh- 
bours at the ale. And so a scholar that purposes to be a good 
husband, and desireth to reap and enjoy much fruit of learning, 
must till and sow thereafter. Our best seed time, which be 
scholars, as it is very timely and when we be young, so it en- 
dureth not over long, and therefore it may not be let slip one 
hour. 

Toxophilus. — For contrarywise, I heard myself a g^ood hus- 
band at his book once say, that to omit study some time of the 
day, and some time of the year, made as much for the increase 
of learning, as to let the land lie some time fallow, maketh for 
the better increase of corn. This we see, if the land be ploughed 
every year, the corn cometh thin up ; the ear is short, the grain, 
is small, and when it is brought into the barn and threshed, 
giveth very evil faule.^ So those which never leave poring on 
their books, have oftentimes as thin invention as other poor 
men have, and as small wit and weight in it as in other men's. 
And thus your husbandry, methink, is more like the life of a 
covetous snudge that oft very evil proves, than the labour of a 
good husband, that knoweth well what he doth. And surely 
the best wits to learning must needs have much recreation and 
easing from their book, or else they mar themselves ; when 
base and dumpish wits can never be hurt with continual study ; 
as ye see in luting, that a treble minikin string must always be 
let down, but at such time as when a man needs play, whens 
the base and dull string needeth never to be moved out of his 
place. 

The work also goes fully into the practical part of the art, so that the ' ' Scheie 
for Shootinge" is a complete manual of archery, containing not only a 
learned history of the art, and the highest encomiums on its excellence and 
utility, but likewise the most minute practical details, even down to the 
species of goose from the wing of which the best feathers are to be plucked 



' For an admirable criticism of the works of Roger Ascham, see Retro- 
spective Review, vol. iv., p. 75. - Produce. -^ Whereas. 



68 ASCHAM. [ELIZABETH 

for the shaft. The following is a specimen of his lively and entertaining 
manner. 

Toxophilus. — Yet well fare the gentle goose, which bringeth 
to a man so many exceeding commodities ! For the goose is 
man's comfort in war and in peace, sleeping and waking. What 
praise soever is given to shooting, the goose may challenge the 
best part of it. Ho?a) well doth she make a man fare at his 
table.' How easily doth she make a man lie in his bed! How 
fit, even as her feathers be only for shooting, so be her quills 
for writing. 

Philologus. — Indeed, Toxophile, that is the best praise you 
gave to a goose yet, and surely I would have said you had been 
to blame if you had overskipt it. 

Toxophilus. — The Romans, I trow, Philologe, not so much 
because a goose with crying saved their capitolium, with their 
golden Jupiter, did make a golden goose, and set her in the top 
of the capitolium, and appointed also the censors to allow, out 
of the common batch, yearly stipends for the finding of certain 
geese ; the Romans did not, I say, give all this honor to a 
goose for that good deed only, but for other infinite mo,' which 
come daily to a man by geese ; and surely if I should declaim 
in the praise of any manner of beast living, I would choose a 
goose. But the goose hath made us flee too far from our matter. 
But Ascham had another object in writing the Toxophilus: it was, as Dr. 
Johnson remarks, "to give an example of diction more natural and more 
truly English than was used by the common writers of that age, whom he 
censures for mingling exotic terms with their native language, and of whom 
he complains that they were made authors, not by skill or education, but 
by arrogance and temerity." Consequently, he was one of the first founders 
of a style truly English in prose composition. He was among the first to 
reject the use of foreign words and idioms, a fashion which, in the time of 
Henry VIH., began to be so prevalent. The following is his apology for 
writing his work in English. 

If any man would blame me either for taking such a matter 
in hand, or else for writing it in the English tongue, this an- 
swer I may make him, that when the best of the realm think 
it honest for them to use, I, one of the meanest sort, ought not 
to suppose it vile for me to write: and though to have written 
it in another tongue had been both more profitable for my study, 
and also more honest for my name, yet I can think my labour 
well bestowed, if with a little hindrance of my profit and name 
may come any furtherance to the pleasure or commodity of 

* More. 



1558-1603.] ASCHAM. 69 

the gentlemen and yeomen of England, for whose sake I took 
this matter in hand. And as for the Latin or Greek tongue, 
everything is so excellently done in them, that none can do 
better; in the English tongue, contrary, every thing in a manner 
so meanly, both for the matter and handling, that no man can 
do worse. For therein the least learned, for the most part, 
have been always most ready to write. And they which had 
least hope in Latin have been most bold in English: when 
surely every man that is most ready to talk is not most able to 
write. He that will write well in any tongue, must follow this 
counsel of Aristotle, to speak as the common people do, to 
think as wise men do: as so should every man understand 
him, and the judgment of wise men allow him. Many English 
writers have not done so, but using strange words, as Latin, 
French, and Italian, do make all things dark and hard. Once 
I communed with a man which reasoned the English tongue to 
be enriched and increased thereby, saying. Who will not praise 
that feast where a man shall drink at a dinner both wine, ale, 
and beer ? Truly (quoth I) they be all good, every one taken 
by himself alone, but if you put malvesye^ and sack, red wine 
and white, ale and beer, and all in one pot, you shall make a 
drink not easy to be known, nor yet wholesome for the body. 

The other principal work of Roger Ascham is his " School Master. "2 Of 
this, Dr. Johnson says, "It is conceived with great vigor, and finished with 
great accuracy ; and perhaps con'ains the best advice that was ever given for 
the study of languages." He thus recommends an intermixture of elegant 
accomplishments and manly exercises. 

I would wish, that beside some good time, fidy appointed, and 
constantly kept, to increase by reading the knowledge of the 
tongues, and learning, young gentlemen should use, and delight 
in all courtly exercises, and gentletnanlike pastimes. And 
good cause why: for the self-same noble city of Athens, 
jusdy commended of me before, did wisely, and upon great 
consideration, appoint the muses, Apollo and Pallas, to be 
patrons of learning to their youth. For the muses, besides 
learning, were also ladies of dancing, mirth, and minstrelsy : 

' Malmsley. 

** The title is, "The School Master, or plain and perfect way of teaching 
children to understand, write, and speak the Latin tongue; but specially pur- 
posed for the private bringing up of youth in gentlemen and noblemen's 
houses, and commodious also for all such as have tbrgot the Latin tongue, 
and would by themselves, and without a schoolmaster, in short time and with 
small pains, recover a sufficient hability to understand, write, and speak 
Latin." 



70 ASCHAM. [ELIZABETH 

Apollo was god of shooting, and author of cunning playing 
upon instruments; Pallas also was lady mistress in wars. 
Whereby was nothing else meant, but that learning should 
be always mingled with honest mirth, and comely exercises; 
and that war also should be governed by learning and mode- 
rated by wisdom; as did well appear in those captains of 
Athens named by me before, and also in Scipio and Caesar, the 
two diamonds of Rome. And Pallas was no more feared in 
wearing Mglda,^ than she was praised for choosing Olivamf 
whereby shineth the glory of learning, which thus was governor 
and mistress, in the nolDle city of Athens, both of war and 
peace. 

Again, he speaks of the great danger to one's morals that attends foreign 
travels, — remarks from which we of our day may derive a very instructive 
lesson. There is now, as then, no ordeal more severe for trying the strength 
of one's moral principles, than to travel through France and Italy. We 
hardly know, ourselves, how much our correct conduct is indebted to the 
restraints of friends and kindred around us, until we are placed where those 
restraints no longer exist. 

I know divers noble personages, and many M^orthy gentle- 
men of England, whom all the syren songs of Italy could 
never untwine from the mast of God's word; nor no inchant- 
ment of vanity overturn them from the fear of God and love 
of honesty. 

But I know as many, or ??20, and some, sometime my dear 
friends, (for whose sake I hate going into that country the 
more,) who parting out of England fervent in the love of 
Christ's doctrine, and well furnished with the fear of God, re- 
turned out of Italy, worse transformed than ever was any in 
Circe's court. I know divers, that went out of England men 
of innocent life, men of excellent learning, who returned out 
of Italy, not only with worse manners, but also with less learn- 
ing; neither so willing to live orderly, nor yet so hable to speak 
learnedly, as they were at home, before they went abroad. * * 

But I am afraid that over many of our travellers into Italy, 
do not eschew the way to Circe's court, but go, and ride, and 
run, and fly thither; they make great haste to come to her; 
they make great suit to serve her; yea, I could point out some 
with my finger, that never had gone out of England, but only 
to serve Circe in Italy. * * * If you think we judge amiss, and 

^ The -3^vgis, the shield of Minerva. 

^ The olive, which she is said to have produced, and thus had the right to 
give her name (Athene) to Athens. 



1558-1603.] SIDNEY. 71 

write too sore against you, hear what the Italian sayeth of the 
EngUshman; what the master reporteth of the scholar, who 
uttereth plainly what is taught by him, and what is learned by 
you, saying, Englese Italianato, e un Diabolo incarnato: that 
is to say, " you remain men in shape and fashion, but become 
devils in life and condition." 

****** 

If some do not well understand what is an Englishman Ita- 
lianated, I will plainly tell him : " He that by living and travel- 
ling in Italy, bringeth home into England, out of Italy, the 
religion, the learning, the policy, the experience, the manners 
of Italy." That is to say, for religion, papistry, or worse; for 
learning, less commonly than they carried out with them ; for 
policy, a factious heart, a discoursing head, a mind to meddle 
in all men's matters ; for experience, plenty of new mischiefs 
never known in England before ; for manners, variety of vani- 
ties, and change of filthy lying. 

Then they have in more reverence the triumphs of Petrarch, 
than the Genesis of Moses ; they make more account of Tully's 
Offices, than of St. Paul's Epistles ; of a tale in Boccace, than 
a story of the Bible. Then they count as fables the holy 
mysteries of Christian religion. They make Christ and his 
Gospel only serve civil pohcy. Then neither religion cometh 
amiss to them. In time they be promoters of both openly; in 
place, again, mockers of both privily, as I wrote once in a 
rude rhyme : 

Now new, now old, now both, now neither; 

To serve the world's course, they care not with whether. 



SIR PHILIP SYDNEY, 1554—1586. 

" Few characters," says an able writer,' " appear so well fitted to excite 
enthusiastic admiration, as that of Sir Philip Sydney. Uniting all the ac- 
complishments which youthful ardor and universahty of talent could acquire 
or bestow ; delighting nations by the witchery of his powers, and courts by 
the fascination of his address ; leaving the learned astonished at his profi- 
ciency, and the ladies enraptured with his grace ; and communicating, 
wherever he went, the love and spirit of gladness, he was and well deserved 

'■ See Retrospective Review, vol. ii. p. 1, and vol. x. p. 43; also the Lon- 
don Quarterly, vol. i. p. 67. 



72 SIDNEY. [ELIZABETH 

to be, the idol of the age in which he lived. So rare an union of attraction, 
so unaccustomed a concentration of excellence, such a compound of military 
renown with literary distinction, and courtly refinement with noble frank- 
ness, gave him a passport to every heart, and secured him, at once, universal 
sympathy and esteem." 

He was born in 1554. At the age of thirteen he entered Oxford, and 
on leaving the university, though only eighteen, commenced his travels 
abroad. He was at Paris at the time of the horrible popish massacre of St. 
Bartholomew, on the night of the 24th of August, 1572, and took refuge with 
many others at the house of Sir Francis Walsingham, at that time ambassador 
there from England. Leaving Paris soon after, he pursued his route through 
Germany and Italy, and returned to England in 1575, at the age of twenty- 
one. He was soon sent by Elizabeth as ambassador to Vienna, where, 
though so young, he acquitted himself with great credit. In 1583 he married 
the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, and was knighted. Two years 
afterwards he was named as a candidate for the throne of Poland ; but his 
sense of the duty which he owed to his country, led him to acquiesce fully 
in the remonstrance of Elizabeth against the proposal, "who," says the 
historian, " refused to further the advancement, out of fear that she should 
lose the jewel of her times." 

The United Provinces having previously declared their independence, 
England resolved to assist them to throw off the yoke of Spain, and in 1586 
Sydney was sent into the Netherlands, as general of the horse. On the 
22d of September of that year, in a skirmish near Zutphen, Sydney beat a 
superior force of the enemy, which he casually encountered, but lost his 
own life. After his horse had been shot under him he mounted another, 
and continued to fight till he received his death wound. The anecdote 
recorded of him in his dying moments, though it has been told a thousand 
times, must ever be repeated when Sidney's character is considered; evinc- 
ing, as it does, characteristics mfinitely more to be honored and loved than all 
the glory ever acquired in the bloody, and soon, I trust, in the progress of 
Christian sentiment, to be considered the disgraceful and wicked work of 
the battle-field. After he had received his death- wound, being overcome 
with thirst from excessive bleeding, he called for drink. It was brought to 
him immediately ; but the moment he was lifting it to his mouth, a poor 
soldier was carried by, desperately wounded, who fixed his eyes eagerly 
upon it. Sidney, seeing this, instantly delivered it to him, with these 
memorable words : " Thy necessity is yet greater than mine." All Eng- 
land wore mourning for his death, and voj^umes of laments and elegies were 
poured forth in all languages, i ^^^ 

Sir Philip Sidney's literary reputation rests on his two prose works — the 
"Arcadia" and the " Defence of Poesy." He wrote a few sonnets, but 

* Lord Brook says of him, that " his end was not writing, even while he 
wrote; nor his knowledge moulded for tables or schools ; but both his wit 
and understanding bent upon his heart to make himself and others, not in 
words or opinion, but in life and action, good and great." 



1558-1603.] SIDNEY. 73 

they are cold, stiff, and affected. His best poetry is his prose;' and as a 
prose writer he may justly be regarded as the best of his time. 2 

" The "Arcadia" is a mixture of what has been called the heroic and the 
pastoral romance. The scene of it is laid in Arcadia, that province of the 
Peloponnesus, celebrated in olden time as the abode of shepherds, and the 
scene of most of the pastoral poetry of Greece. 

Musidorus and Pyrocles are the heroes of the romance, and are united 
together in a firm league of friendship. They go forth in quest of adventures, 
and after killing the customary quantum of giants and monsters, set sail for 
Greece. The ship is wrecked, and Musidorus is thrown upon the shores of 
Laconia. He is seen by two shepherds, who offer to conduct him to Kalan- 
der, a wealthy inhabitant of Arcadia, the province north of Laconia. As 
they enter into Arcadia, its beautiful appearance strikes the eyes of Musi- 
dorus. 

There were hills which garnished their proud heights with 
stately trees : humble valleys, whose base estate seemed com- 
forted with the refreshing of silver rivers : meadows, enameled 
with all sorts of eye-pleasing flowers : thickets, which being 
lined with most pleasant shade were witnessed so too, by the 
cheerful disposition of many well-tuned birds : each pasture 
stored with sheep, feeding with sober security, while the pretty 
lambs with bleating oratory craved the dam's comfort : here a 
shepherd's boy piping, as though he should never be old; there 
a young shepherdess knitting, and withal singing, and it seemed 
that her voice comforted her hands to work, and her hands kept 
time to her voice-music. 

After being at the house of Kalander a few days, Pyrocles mysteriously 
arrives. The Prince of Arcadia had two daughters, with whom, of course, 
the two young heroes fall in love. The following is a description of their 
characters : 

^ Cowper very felicitously calls him a " vvarbler of poetic prose ;" and he 
himself says, in his " Defence of Poesy," " It is not rhyming and versing that 
maketh poesy: one maybe a poet without versing, and a versifier without 
poetry." 

^ I say this in defiance of the criticisms of Hazlitt, as ungenerous as they 
are unjust. See his " Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of 
Elizabeth," in No. 13 of Wiley and Putnam's " Library of Choice Reading." 
Of this generally excellent series of books, I would particularly recommend 
the following to such as often ask of ine " list of books" for reading. No 5, 
Diary of Lady Wilioughby; No. 13, Hazlitt's Literature of the Age of Eliza- 
beth; Nos. 16 and 19, Hood's Prose and Verse; No. 17, Hazlitt's Characters 
in Shakspeare's Plays; No. 18, " The Crock of Gold ;" No. 21 , Professor 
Wilson's Genius and Character of Burns ; Nos. 6, 7, 2.5, and 59, Hazlitt's 
Table Talk; No. 26, Basil Montagu's Selections; No. 28, Hazlitt's Comic 
Writers of England ; Nos. 31 and 32, Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy ; No. 36, 
Hazlitt's English Poets; Nos. 39— 42, Carlyle's Cromwell; Nos. SI and 82, 
Izaak Walton's Lives of Donne, &c. 



74 SIDNEY. [ELIZABETH 

The elder is named Pamela, by many men not deemed infe- 
rior to her sister: for my part, when I marked them both, me- 
thonght there was (if at least such perfections may receive the 
word of more) more sweetness in Philoclea, but more majesty 
in Pamela : methought love played in Philoclea's eyes and 
threatened in Pamela's ; methought Philoclea's beauty only 
persuaded, but so persuaded as all hearts must yield ; Pamela's 
beauty used violence, and such violence as no heart could re- 
sist. And it seems that such proportion is between their minds : 
Philoclea so bashful, as though her excellencies had stolen into 
her before she was aware; so humble, that she will put all 
pride out of countenance ; in short, such proceedings as will 
stir hope, but teach hope good manners. Pamela of high 
thoughts, who avoids not pride with not knowing her excel- 
lencies, but by making that one of her excellencies to be void 
of pride ; her mother's wisdom, greatness, nobility, but (if I 
can guess aright) knit with a more constant temper. 

The following is a description of a stag-hunt : 

Then went they together abroad, the good Kalander enter- 
taining them with pleasant discoursing — how well he loved the 
sport of hunting when he was a young man, how much in the 
comparison thereof he disdained all cham.ber-delights, that the 
sun (how great a journey soever he had to make) could never 
prevent him with earliness, nor the moon, with her sober coun- 
tenance, dissuade him from watching till midnight for the deers' 
feeding. O, said he, you will never live to my age, without 
you keep yourself in breath with exercise, and in heart with 
joyfulness ; too much thinking doth consume the spirits ; and 
oft it falls out, that, while one thinks too much of his doing, he 
leaves to do the effect of his thinking. Then spared he not to 
remember, how much Arcadia was changed since his youth ; 
activity and good fellowship being nothing in the price it was 
then held in ; but, according to the nature of the old-growing 
world, still worse and worse. Then would he tell them stories 
of such gallants as he had known; and so, with pleasant com- 
pany, beguiled the time's haste, and shortened the way's length, 
till they came to the side of the wood, where the hounds were 
in couples, staying their coming, but with a M'hining accent 
craving liberty ; many of them in color and marks so resem- 
bling, that it showed they were of one kind. The huntsmen 
handsomely attired in their green liveries, as though they vveie 
children of summer, with staves in their hands to beat the guilt- 
less earth, when the hounds were at a fault ; and with horns 



1558-1603.] SIDNEY. 75 

about their necks, to sound an alarm upon a silly fugitive ; the 
hounds were straight uncoupled, and ere long the stag thought 
it better to trust to the nimbleness of his feet than to the slender 
fortification of his lodging; but even his feet betrayed him; for, 
howsoever they went, they themselves uttered themselves to 
the scent of their enemies, who, one taking it of another, and 
sometimes believing the wind's advertisements, sometimes the 
view of (their faithful counsellors) the huntsmen, with open 
mouths, then denounced war, when the war was already begun. 
Their cry being composed of so well-sorted mouths, that any 
man would perceive therein some kind of proportion, but the 
skilful woodmen did find a music. Then delight and variety 
of opinion drew the horsemen sundry ways, yet cheering their 
hounds with voice and horn, kept still, as it were, together. 
The wood seemed to conspire with them against his own citi- 
zens, dispersing their noise through all his quarters; and even 
the nymph Echo left to bewail the loss of Narcissus, and be- 
came a hunter. But the stag w^as in the end so hotly pursued, 
that, leaving his flight, he was driven to make courage of despair ; 
and so turning his head, made the hounds, with change of speech, 
to testify that he was at a bay : as if from hot pursuit of their 
enemy, they were suddenly come to a parley. 

The prayer of Pamela when, in the absence of her lover, she was beset 
by the designing and the wicked, well deserves extracting. 

O All-seeing Light and Eternal Life of all things, to whom 
nothing is either so great that it may resist, or so small that it 
is contemned: look upon my misery with thine eye of mercy, 
and let thine infinite power vouchsafe to limit out some propor- 
tion of deliverance unto me, as to thee shall seem most conve- 
nient. Let not injury, Lord, triumph over me, and let my 
faults by thy hand be corrected, and make not mine unjust 
enemy the minister of thy justice. But yet, my God, if in 
thy wisdom this be the aptest chastisement for my unexcusable 
folly ; if this low bondage be fittest for my over-high desires ; 
if the pride of my not enough humble heart be thus to be 
broken; O Lord, I yield unto thy will, and joyfully embrace 
what sorrow thou wilt have me suflf'er. Only thus much let 
me crave of thee, (let my craving, O Lord, be accepted of thee, 
since even that proceeds from thee,) let me crave, even by the 
noblest title, which in my greatest affliction I may give myself, 
that I am thy creature, and by thy goodness (which is thyself) 
that thou wilt sufl^er some beam of thy Majesty so to shine into 
my mind, that it may still depend confidently on thee. Let 



76 SIDNEY. [ELIZABETH 

calamity be the exercise, but not the overthrow, of my virtue : 
let their power prevail, but prevail not to destruction : let my 
greatness be their prey : let my pain be the sweetness of their 
revenge: let them (if so seem good unto thee) vex me with 
more and more punishment: but, O Lord, let never their wick- 
edness have such a hand, but that I may carry a pure mind in 
a pure body. 

The result is, that after passing through many severe trials of their love, 
these two princesses are married to Musidorus and Pyrocles, and so ends 
the "Arcadia." 

The other great vs^ork of Sir Philip Sidney is his " Defence of Poesy," 
which may be truly pronounced to be the most beautiful as well as the most 
truthful essay upon the subject in our language, and one from which hun- 
dreds have borrowed, without acknowledging their obligations.' "It may be 
regarded as a logical discourse, from beginning to end, interspersed here and 
there with a few of the more flowery parts of eloquence, but everywhere 
keeping in view the main objects, indeed, of all logic and eloquence — proof 
and persuasion. It is evidently the result of deep conviction in the mind of 
the writer, and a strong desire to impress that conviction upon others : to 
impress it, however, in a manner that shall render it not merely a sentiment 
of the heart, but a settled belief of the reason and judgment. "^ In what a 
skillful and highly eloquent manner does he contrast " Poesy" with all the 
other arts and sciences. 

There is no art delivered to mankind, that hath not the works 
of nature for its principal object, without which they could not 
consist, and on which they so depend, as they become actors 
and players, as it were, of what nature will have set forth. So 
doth the astronomer look upon the stars, and by that he seeth 
set down what order nature hath taken therein. So doth the 
geometrician and arithmetician, in their divers sorts of quanti- 
ties. So doth the musician, in tunes tell you which by nature 
agree, which not. The natural philosopher thereon hath his 
name, and the moral philosopher standeth upon the natural 
virtues, vices, or passions of man : And follow nature, saith 
he, therein, and you shall not err. The lawyer saith what men 
have determined. The historian, what men have done. The 
grammarian speaketh only of the rules of speech, and the 
rhetorician and logician, considering what in nature will 
soonest prove and persuade, thereon give artificial rules, which 
are still compassed within the circle of a question, according to 

^ "The great praise of Sidney in this treatise is, that he has shown the 
capacity of the English language for spirit, variety, gracious idiom, and mas- 
culine firmness." — Hallam's Introduction to the Literature of Europe. 

^ Retrospective Review, x. 45. 



1558-1603.] SIDNEY. 77 

the proposed matter. The physician weigheth the nature of 
man's body, and the nature of things hurtful or helpful to it. 
And the metaphysic, though it be in the second and abstract 
notions, and therefore be counted supernatural, yet doth he in- 
deed build upon the depth of nature. 

Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection, 
lifted up with the vigor of his own invention, doth grow, in 
effect, into another nature; in making things either better than 
nature bringeth forth, or quite anew, forms such as never were 
in nature, as the heroes, demigods, cyclops, chymeras, furies, 
and such like, so as he goeth hand in hand with nature, not 
enclosed within the narrow warrant of her gifts, but freely 
ranging within the zodiac of his own wit. Nature never set 
forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done ; 
neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling 
flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too-much-loved 
earth more lovely : her world is brazen, the poets only deliver 
a golden. Neither let it be deemed too saucy a comparison, 
to balance the highest point of man's wit with the efficacy of 
nature ; but rather give right honor to the heavenly Maker of 
that maker, who having made man to his own likeness, set him 
beyond and over all the works of that second nature, which in 
nothing he showed so much as in poetry — when, with the force 
of a divine breath, he bringeth things forth surpassing her do- 
ings ; with no small arguments to the incredulous of that first 
accursed fall of Adam. — Since our erect wit maketh us know 
what perfection is, and yet our infected will keepeth us from 
reaching unto it. 

Again, he contrasteth the Philosopher, the Historian, and the Poet.' 

The philosopher, therefore, and the historian are they which 
would win the goal, the one by precept, the other by example; 
but both, not having both, do both halt. For the philosopher, 
sitting down with the thorny arguments, the bare rule is so 
hard of utterance, and so misty to be conceived, that one that 
hath no other guide but him shall wade in him until he be old, 
before he shall find sufficient cause to be honest. For his 
knowledge standeth so upon the abstract and general, that 
happy is that man who may understand him, and more happy 
that can apply what he doth understand. On the other side, 
the historian, wanting the precept, is so tied, not to what should 

' One cannot fail to see many of these same ideas in the first lecture of that 
most instructive book, Bishop Lowth's Lectures on Hebrew Poetry. 



78 SIDNEY. [ELIZABETH 

be, but to what is — to the particular truth of things, and not the 
general reason of things — that his example draweth not neces- 
sary consequence, and therefore a less fruitful doctrine. Now 
doth the peerless poet perform both ; for whatsoever the phi- 
losopher saith should be done, he giveth a perfect picture of it, 
by some one by whom he pre-supposeth it was done; so as he 
coupleth the general notion with the particular example. A 
perfect picture, I say, — for he yieldeth to the powers of the 
mind an image of that whereof the philosopher bestoweth but 
a wordish description, which doth neither strike, pierce, nor 
possess the sight of the soul, so much as that other doth. — 
So, no doubt, the philosopher with his learned definitions, be 
it of virtues or vices, matters of public policy or private govern- 
ment, replenisheth the memory with many infallible grounds of 
wisdom, which, notwithstanding, lie dark before the imagina- 
tive and judging power, if they be not illuminated and figured 
forth by the speaking picture of poesy. Tully taketh much 
pains, and many times not without poetical helps, to make us 
know what force the love of our country hath in us : let us but 
hear old Anchises, speaking in the midst of Troy's flames ; or 
see Ulysses, in the fulness of all Calypso's delights, bewailing 
his absence from barren and beggarly Ithaca ! Anger, the 
Stoics said, was a short madness ; let but Sophocles bring you 
Ajax on a stage, killing or whipping sheep and oxen, thinking 
them the army of the Greeks, with their chieftains Agamem- 
non and Menelaus ; and tell me if you have not a more familiar 
insight into anger than finding in the school-men its genus and 
difference ? The philosopher teacheth, but he teacheth ob- 
scurely, so as the learned only can understand him ; that is to 
say, he teacheth them that are already taught. But the poet is 
the food for tender stomachs ; the poet is indeed the right popu- 
lar philosopher. 

After having gone through many particular comparisons, he thus comes 
out with a fine burst of enthusiasm in praise of Poetry. 

Now therein — (that is to say, the power of at once teaching 
and enticing to do well) — now therein, of all sciences- — I speak 
still of human and according to human conceit — is our poet the 
monarch. For he doth not only show the way, but giveth so 
sweet a prospect into the way, as will entice any man to enter 
into it. Nay, he doth-as if your journey should lie through a 
fair vineyard, at the very first give you a cluster of grapes, that, 
full of that taste, you may long to pass further. He beginneth 
not with obscure definitions, which must blur the margent with 



1558-1603.] SIDNEY. 79 

interpretations, and load the memory with doubtfulness; but he 
cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion, either 
accompanied with, or prepared for, the well-enchanting skill of 
music ; and with a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you with a 
tale, which holdeth children from play, and old men from the 
chimney-corner;' and pretending no more, doth intend the win- 
ning of the mind from wickedness to virtue, even as the child 
is often brought to take most wholesome things, by hiding them 
in such other as have a pleasant taste. For even those hard- 
hearted evil men, who think virtue a school name, and know 
no other good but indulgere genio, and therefore despise the 
austere admonitions of the philosopher, and feel not the inward 
reason they stand upon, yet will be content to be delighted ; 
which is all the good-fellow poet seems to promise ; and so 
steal to see the form of goodness — which seen, they cannot but 
love ere themselves be aware, as if they had taken a medicine 
of cherries. By these, therefore, examples and reasons, I think 
it may be manifest that the poet, with that same hand of de- 
light, doth draw the mind more effectually than any other art 
doth. And so a conclusion not unfitly ensues, that as virtue is 
the most excellent resting-place for all Avorldly learning to make 
an end of, so poetry, being the most familiar to teach it, and 
most princely to move towards it, in the most excellent work 
is the most excellent workman. 

Since, then, poetry is of all human learning the most ancient, 
and of most fatherly antiquity, as from whence other learnings 
have taken their beginnings ; — Since it is so universal that no 
learned nation doth despise it, no barbarous nation is without ' 
it; — Since both Roman and Greek gave such divine names 
unto it, the one of prophesying, the other of making; and that, 
indeed, that name of making is fit for it, considering that 
whereas all other arts retain themselves within their subject, 
and receive, as it were, their being from it, — the poet, only, 
bringeth his own stuff, and doth not learn a conceit out of the 
matter, but maketh matter for a conceit; — Since neither his 
description nor end containing any evil, the thing described 
cannot be evil ; — Since his effects be so good as to teach good- 
ness and delight the learners of it; — Since therein (namely, in 
moral doctrine, the chief of all knowledge) he doth not only far 

^ We have here, undoubtedly, the origin of Shakspeare's — 
That elder ears played truant at his tale, 
And younger hearings were quite ravish'd, — 
So sweet and voluble was his discourse, &c. 



80 MARLOWE. [ELIZABETH 

pass the historian, but, for instructing, is well nigh comparable 
to the philosopher, and for moving leaveth him behind ; — Since 
the Holy Scripture (wherein there is no uncleanness) hath 
whole parts in it poetical, and that even our Saviour Christ 
vouchsafed to use the flowers of it; — Since all its kinds are 
not only in their united forms, but in their severed dissections 
fully commendable : — I think — (and I think 1 think rightly,) — 
the laurel crown appointed for triumphant captains, doth worth- 
ily, of all other learnings, honor the poet's triumph. 



CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, 1562—1592. 

Christopher Marlowe, a cotemporary of Shakspeare, and known in 
his life as an actor and dramatic writer, is now remembered chiefly for that 
beautiful little piece, entitled 

A PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE. 

Gome live with me and be my love, 
And we will all the pleasures prove 
That vallies, groves, and hills, and fields, 
Woods or steepy mountain yields. 

And we will sit upon the rocks, 
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks. 
By shallow rivers, to whose falls 
Melodious birds sing madrigals. 

And I will make thee beds of roses, 
And a thousand fragrant posies ; 
A cap of flowers and a kirtle. 
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle : 

A gown made of the finest wool, 
Which from our pretty lambs we puUj 
Fair lined slippers for the cold. 
With buckles of the purest gold : 

A belt of straw and ivy buds. 
With coral clasps and amber studs ; 
And if these pleasures may thee move, 
Come live with me, and be my love. 

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing, 
For thy delight, each May morning : 
If these delights thy mind may move. 
Then live with me, and be my love. 



1558-1603.] SOUTHWELL. 81 



ROBERT SOUTHWELL, 1562-1595. 

Robert Southwell was descended from an ancient and respectable Ca- 
tholic family in Norfolk, and was born about the year 1562. At an early age 
he was sent to the English College at Douay,' and thence he went to Rome, 
where he entered the " Order of the Society of Jesus." After finishing his 
course of study there, the Pope sent him, in 1584, as a missionary to Eng- 
land. He had not been at home but a few years when he was apprehended 
by some of Elizabeth's agents, for being engaged in a conspiracy against the 
government. He was sent to prison, where he remained three years. He 
was repeatedly put upon the rack, and, as he himself affirmed, underwent 
very severe tortures no less than ten times. Wearied with torture and 
solitary imprisonment, he begged that he might be brought to trial, to 
answer for himself. At his trial he owned that he was a priest and a Jesuit, 
but denied that he ever entertained any designs against the queen or king- 
dom ; alleging that he came to England simply to administer the sacraments 
according to the Catholic church to such as desired them. The jury found 
him guilty of treason, and when asked if he had anything to say why sen- 
tence should not be pronounced against him, he replied, "Nothing; but 
from my heart I forgive all who have been any way accessible to my 
death." Sentence was pronounced, and the next day he was led to exe- 
cution.2 

This whole proceeding should cover the authors of it with everlasting 
infamy. It is a foul stain upon the garments of the maiden queen that she 
can never wipe off. There was not a particle of evidence at his trial that 
this pious and accomplished poet meditated any evil designs against the 
government. He did what he had a perfect right to do ; aye, what it was his 
duty to do, if he conscientiously thought he was right, — endeavor to make 
converts to his faith, so far as he could without interfering with the rights of 
others. If there be anything that is to be execrated, it is persecution for 
opinion's sake. There is an excess of meanness, as well as wickedness, in 
striving to put down opinions by physical force. Those who do it thereby 
tacitly acknowledge that they have no other arguments, for truth has no 
reason ever to fear in any combat with error. ^ 

Southwell's poems are all on moral and religious subjects. Though they 
have not many of the endowments of fancy, they are peculiarly pleasing for 
the simplicity of their diction, and especially for the fine moral truths and 
lessons they convey. 

' In the northernmost province of France, where was made the celebrated 
papal version of the Scriptures — the " Douay Bible." 

2 The best accounts of Southwell may be found in the Gentleman's Maga- 
zine for Nov., 1798. 

^ Truth crushed to earth revives again, 
The eternal years of God are hers ; 
But error, wounded, writhes in pain, 

And dies amid her worshippers. — /. G. Whittier. 

6 



82 SOUTHWELL. [ELIZABETH 



TIMES GO BY TURNS. 

The lopped tree in time may grow again, 

Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower ; 

The sorriest wight may find release of pain, 

The driest soil suck iii some moistening shower : 

Time goes by turns, and chances change by course, 

From foul to fair, from better hap to worse. 

The sea of fortune doth not ever flow. 
She draws her favors to the lowest ebb : 

Her tides have equal times to come and go; 

Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web: 

No joy so great but runneth to an end. 

No hap so hard but may in fine amend. 

Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring. 
Not endless night, yet not eternal day : 

The saddest birds a season find to sing. 

The roughest storm a calm may soon allay. 

Thus, with succeeding turns, God tempereth all, 

That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall. 

A chanice may win that by mischance was lost ; 

That net that holds no great, takes little fish ; 
In some things all, in all things none are crossed ; 

Few all they need, but none have all they wish. 
Unmingled joys hereto no man befall ; 
Who least, hath some ; who most, hath never all. 



SCORN NOT THE LEAST. 

Where wards are weak, and foes encountering strong 
Where mightier do assault than do defend, 

The feebler part puts up enforced wrong. 

And silent sees that speech could not amend: 

Yet, higher powers must think, though they repine, 

When sjan is set the little stars will shine. 

While pike doth range, the silly tench doth flie, 
And crouch in privy creeks with smaller fish : 

Yet pikes are caught when little fish go by. 
These fleet afloat, while those do flU the dish; 

There is a time even for the worms to creep, 

And suck the dew while all their foes do sleep. 

The merlin cannot ever soar on high, 

Nor greedy grey-hound still pursue the chase ; 

The tender lark will flnd a time to flie, 
And, fearful hare to run a quiet race. 

He that high growth on cedars did bestow. 

Gave also lowly mushrooms leave to grow. 



1558-1603.] SOUTHWELL. 83 

In Haraan's pomp poor Mordocheus wept, 

Yet God did turn his fate upon his foe. 
The Lazar pin'd, while Dives' feast was kept, 

Yet he to heaven, to heh did Dives go. 
We trample grass, and prize the flowers of May; 
Yet grass is green, when flowers do fade away. 



LOVE S SERVILE LOT. 

She shroudeth vice in virtue's veil. 

Pretending good in ill ; 
She ofiereth joy, but bringeth grief; 

A kiss — where she doth kill. 

A honey-show'r rains from her lips, 
Sweet lights shine in her face. 

She hath the blush of virgin-mind, 
The mind of viper's race. 

She makes thee seek — yet fear to find: 

To find — but nought enjoy ; 
In many frowns, some passing smiles 

She yields, to more annoy. 

She letteth fall some luring baits, 

For fools to gather up ; 
Now sweet — now sour — for every taste 

She tempereth her cup. 

Her watery eyes have burning force. 
Her floods and flames conspire ; 

Tears kindle sparks — sobs fuel are, 
And sighs but fan the fire. 

May never was the month of love, 

For May is full of flowers; 
But rather April — wet by kind, 

For love is full of showers. 

With soothing words enthralled souls 
She chains in servile bands ; 

Her eye, in silence, hath a speech 
Which eye best understands. 

Her little sweet hath many sours ; 

Short hap, immortal harms: 
Her loving looks are murd'ring darts, 

Her songs, bewitching charms. 

Like winter-rose and summer-ice, 

Her joys are still untimely; 
Before her hope, behind remorse. 

Fair first — in fine unkindly. 

Plough not the seas — sow not the sands- 
Leave ofl'your idle pain; 



84 SOUTHWELL. [ELIZABETH 



Seek other mistress for your minds- 
Love's service is in vain. 



CONTENT AND RICH. 

My conscience is my crov^^n, 
Contented thoughts, my rest ; 

My heart is happy in itself, 
My bliss is in my breast. 

Enough I reckon v^ealth ; 

That mean, the surest lot, 
That lies too high for base contempt, 

Too lovi^ for envy's shot. 

My vi'ishes are but few, 

All easy to fulfil: 
I make the limits of my power 

The bounds unto my will. 

I fear no care for gold, 

Well-doing is my wealth ; 
My mind to me an empire is. 

While grace affordeth health. 

I clip high-climbing thoughts, 
Tlae wings of swelling pride ; 

Their fall is worst that from the height 
Of greatest honour slide. 

Since sails of largest size 

The storm doth soonest tear : 

I bear so low and small a sail 
As freeth me from fear. 

I wrestle not with rage 

While fury's flame doth burn ; 

It is vain to stop the stream 
Until the tide doth turn. 

But when the flame is out, 
And ebbing wrath doth end, 

I turn a late enraged foe 
Irito a quiet friend. 

And taught with often proof, 

A temper'd calm I find 
To be most solace to itself, 

But cure for angry mind. 

Spare diet is my fare. 

My clothes more fit than fine ; 
I know I feed and clothe a foe. 

That pamper'd would repine. 

I envy not their hap. 

Whom favor doth advance : 



J 558-1603.] SPENSER. 85 

I take no pleasure in their pain 
That have less happy chance. 

To rise by others' fall 

I deem a losing gain ; 
All states with others' ruin built 

To ruin run amain. 

No change of Fortune's calm 

Can cast my comforts down : 
When Fortune smiles, I smile to think 

How quickly she will frown. 

And when, in froward mood, 

She proved an angry foe, 
Small gain, I found, to let her come — 

Less loss to let her go. 



EDMUND SPENSER, 1553—1599. 

Edmund Spenser, ^ the illustrious author of the " Faerie Queene," was 
born in London, 1553. Of his parentage little is known. " The nobility of 
the Spensers," says Gibbon, ''has been illustrated and enriched by the 
trophies of Marlborough : but I exhort them to consider the Faerie Queene 
as the most precious jewel of their coronet." But his parents were un- 
doubtedly poor, as he entered Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, 1569, as a sizer.^ 
After taking his master's degree in 1578, he went to reside with some rela- 
tions in the north of England. He remained there but a short time, for in 
the latter part of the same year he went to London, and published his 
"Shepherd's Calendar," a series of twelve eclogues, named after the 
twelve months of the year. Though this work indicates but little of the 
genius that Spenser soon after displayed, it gave him some reputation in 
those times ; and in the summer of 1580 he went to Ireland, as secretary to 
Lord Grey, who had been appointed lord lieutenant. On that nobleman's 
being recalled in 1582, the poet returned with him to England, and in 1586 
received a grant of 3028 acres of land forfeited to the crown, as a reward for 
his services, provided he would return to Ireland to cultivate them. He 
accepted the conditions. The Castle of Kilcolman, in the county of Cork, 
was his residence ; and the River Mulla, which he frequently mentions in 
his poems, flowed through his grounds. Here he was visited by Sir Walter 
Raleigh, whom he styles " the Shepherd of the Ocean," with whom he had 
become acquainted during his former residence in Ireland. He persuaded 

' The works of Spenser are now made accessible to every one, in that 
beautiful Boston edition, in five volumes, edited by one of the most accom- 
plished of American scholars, George S. Hillard, Esqr. 

2 That is, a " charity student." They had certain allowance made in their 
college bills, and received that name from the size, as it is called, or portion 
of bread, meat, &c., allotted to a student. 



86 SPENSER. [ELIZABETH 

the poet to accompany him to England, and by him he was presented to 
Queen Elizabeth, an event which he celebrates in his poem, entitled, 
" Colin Clouts come Home againe " 

" Raleigh's visit," remarks Mr. Campbell, i " occasioned the first resolu- 
tion of Spenser, to prepare the first books of ' The Faerie Queene' for 
immediate publication. Spenser has commemorated this interview, and the 
inspiring influence of Raleigh's praise, under the figurative description of 
two shepherds tuning their pipes, beneath the alders of the Mulla; — a fic- 
tion with which the mind, perhaps, will be much less satisfied, than by 
recalling the scene as it really existed. When we conceive Spenser reciting 
his compositions to Raleigh, in a scene so beautifully appropriate, the mind 
casts a pleasing retrospect over that influence which the enterprise of the 
discoverer of Virginia, and the genius of the author of ' The Faerie Queene,' 
have respectively produced on the fortune and language of England, The 
fancy might even be pardoned for a momentary superstition, that the genius 
of their country hovered, unseen, over their meeting, casting her first look 
of regard on the poet, that was destined to inspire her future Milton, and the 
other on the maritime hero, who paved the way for colonizing distant 
regions of the earth, where the language of England was to be spoken, and 
the poetry of Spenser to be admired." 

In 1590 Spenser published the three first books of " The Faerie Queene," 
and in 1591, he received a pension of £bO a year from Queen Elizabeth. 
The favorable manner in which " The Faerie Queene" was received, in- 
duced the pubhsher to collect and print the author's minor poems, which 
may be found in the editions of his works. In 1595 the second part of " The 
Faerie Queene," consisting of three more books, appeared. The poet 
intended to complete the work in twelve books, and it is said that the last 
six were lost on his way from Ireland to England. But of this there is no 
proof, and scarcely any probability. " It is much more likely," says Mr. 
Hiliard, " that the sorrows and misfortunes which clouded the last three 
years of the poet's life, deprived him of both the will and the power to 
engage in poetical composition." In September, 1598, the rebellion of 
O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, drove him and his family from Kilcolman. In the 
confusion of flight, one of the poet's children was unfortunately left behind, 
and perished in the house, which was burnt by the rebels. He arrived in 
England, harassed by these misfortunes, and died in London on the 16th of 
January, 1599, at the age of forty- five, and was buried in Westminster 
Abbey. 

Thus died Spenser, at the early age of forty-five. But how little is there 
of the great and good that can die! He still lives, to delight, to charm, to 
instruct mankind. He still lives, and as far as his writings are read, lives 
to exert the most salutary influence in inspiring a love for the just, the beau- 
tiful, the true ; in purging the soul from the grovelling propensities and 

' Specimens of British Poets, vol. ii. p. 173. A second edition of this work 
has lately been republished in one large octavo. 



1558-1603.] SPENSER. . 87 

appetites that continually clog it here, and in filling it with ardent aspira- 
tions for those high and holy things that claim kindred with its origin. i 

Had Spenser never written " The Faerie Queene," many of his minor 
poems, and especially his " Divine Hymns," would have given him a high, 
a very high rank in English Literature. But " The Faerie Queene," from 
its unequalled richness and beauty, has thrown the rest of his writing, com- 
paratively into the shade. Two things, however, have prevented its being 
generally read; one is, its antiquated diction, and the other its allegorical 
character. The latter "has been," (remarks Mr. Hillard), "a kind of 
bugbear — a vague image of terror brooding over it, and deterring many 
from ever attempting its perusal. To borrow a lively expression of HazUtt's, 
' they are afraid of the allegory, as if they thought it would bite them." 
But though it be an allegorical poem, it is only so to a certain extent and to 
a Umited degree. The interest which the reader feels is a warm, flesh-and- 
blood interest, not in the delineation of a virtue, but in the adventures of a 
knight or lady. It is Una — the trembling, tearful woman — for whom our 
hearts are moved with pity, and not forsaken Truth. We may fairly doff the 
allegory aside, and let it pass, and the poem will lose little or nothing of its 
charm. The grand procession of stately and beautiful forms, the chivalrous 
glow, the stirring adventures, the noble sentiments, the picturesque descrip- 
tions, the delicious poetry, would all be left unimpaired." 

The poet, in a letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, gives the plan of his work. 
" The general end of all the Book," he says, " is to fashion a gentleman or 
noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline." He takes the history of King 
Arthur, "as most fit for the excellency of his person," whom he conceives 
to have seen in a vision the Faery Queen, "with whose excellent beauty 
ravished, he awaking resolved to seek her out." By this Faery Queen, 
Gloriana, he means Glory in general, but in particular, her majesty, Queen 
Elizabeth ; and by Faery Land, her kingdom. So in Prince Arthur he sets 
forth Magnificence or Magnanimity, for "that is the perfection of all the 
rest, and containeth in it them all, therefore," he says, "in the whole 
course I mention the deeds of Arthur applicable to that virtue which I write 
of in that book." 

Of the twelve books he makes or intended to make twelve knights the 
patrons, each of twelve several virtues. The first, the knight of the Red 
Cross, expressing Holiness : the second. Sir Guyon, or Temperance : the 
third, Britomartis, a "Lady Knight," in whom he pictures Chastity : the 
fourth, Cambell and Triamond, or Friendship : the fit^th, Artegal, or Jus- 
tice : the sixth. Sir Calodore, or Courtesy : what the other six books would 
have been we have no means of knowing. The first canto of the first book 
thus opens : 

* I would earnestly recommend to the reader's attention the " Introductory 
Observations on the Faerie Queene," by Mr. Hillard, prefixed to the edition 
just spoken of. They are written with that discriminating taste, justness of 
thought, and felicity of style, which characterize all his writings. 



88 SPENSER. [ELIZABETH 



A gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine, 
Ycladd' in mightie armes and silver shielde, 
"Wherein old dints of deepe woundes did remaine, 
The cruel markes of many' a bloody fielde ; 
Yet armes till that time did he never v^^ield : 
His angry steed e did chide his foming bitt, 
As much disdayning to the curbe to yield : 
Full io]ly2 knight he seerad, and faire did sitt, 
As one for knightly giusts^ and fierce encounters fitt. 

II. 

And on his brest a bloodie crosse he bore, 
The deare remembrance of his dying Lord, 
For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore, 
And dead, as living ever, him ador'd : 
Upon his shield the like was also scor'd, 
For soveraine hope, which in his helpe he had. 
Right, faithfull, true he was in deede and word; 
But of his cheere^ did seeme too solemne sad; 
Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.^ 

III. 

Upon a great adventure he was bond, 
Tlaat greatest Gloriana to him gave, 
(That greatest gloriovis queene of Faerie lond,) 
To winne him worshippe, and her grace to have. 
Which of all earthly thinges he most did crave: 
And ever, as he rode, his hart did earned 
To prove his puissance in battell brave 
Upon his foe, and his new force to learne ; 
Upon his foe, a Dragon horrible and stearne. 

IV. 

A lovely Ladie rode him faire beside, 
Upon a lowly asse more white then snow: 
Yet she much whiter ; but the same did hide 
Under a vele, that "whimpled' was full low ; 
And over all a blacke stole shee did throw : 
As one that inly mournd, so was she sad. 
And heavie sate upon her palfrey slow; 

1 Ycladd, clad. ^ lolly, handsome. ^ Qiusts, tournaments. 

* Cheere, air, or mien. * Ydrad, dreaded. ^ Earne, yearn, 

■f Whimpled, gathered, or plaited. 

I. 1. — A gentle Knight.] Spenser comes at once to the action of the poem, 
and describes the Red-cross knight as having already entered upon the adven- 
ture assigned him by the Faerie Queene, which was to slay the dragon which 
laid waste the kingdom of Una's father. The Red-cross knight is St. George, 
the patron saint of England, and represents holiness or Christian purity, and 
is clothed in the "whole armor of God," described by St. Paul in the sixth 
chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians. 



1558-1603.] SPENSER. 89 

Seemed in heart some hidden care she had; 
And by her in a Hne a milke-white lambe she lad. 

y. 

So pure and innocent, as that same lambe, 
She was in life and every vertuous lore ; 
And by descent from royall lynage came 
Of ancient kinges and queenes, that had of yore 
Their scepters stretcht from east to westerne shore, 
And all the world in their subjection held; 
Till that infernal Feend with foule uprore 
Forwasted all their land, and them expeld ; 
Whom to avenge, she had this Knight from far compeld. 



Behind her farre away a Dwarfe did lag, 
That lasie seemd, in being ever last, 
Or wearied with bearing of her bag 
Of needments at his backe. Thus as they past, 
The day with cloudes was suddeine overcast. 
And angry love an hideous storme of raine 
Did poure into his lemans lap so fast, 
That everie wight to shrowd it did constrain; 
And this faire couple eke to shroud themselves were fain/ 



Enforst to seeke some covert nigh at hand, 
A shadie grove not farr away they spide, 
That promist ayde the tempest to withstand; 
Whose loftie trees, yclad with sommers pride, 
Did spred so broad, that heavens light did hide, 
Not perceable with power of any starr : 
And all within were pathes and alleles wide, 
With footing worne, and leading inward farr: 
Faire harbour that them seems; so in they entred ar. 



And foorth they passe, with pleasure forward led, 
loying to lieare the birdes sweete harmony, 
Which, therein shrouded from the tempest dred, 
Seemd in their song to scorne the cruell sky. 
Much can they praise the trees so straight and hy, 
The sayling pine; the cedar proud and tall; 
The vine-propp elme ; the poplar never dry ; 
The builder oake, sole king of forrests all ; 
The aspine good for staves ; the cypresse funerall ; 

' Fain, glad. 



V. 8. — Forwasted.] Much wasted. — The prefix foi- is an intensive, from 
the Saxon and German ver. 

VIII. 5. — Can they praise.] Much they praised. — This form of expression 
is frequently used by Spenser. Some, however, consider ' can' to be put for 
' gan,' or < began.' 



90 SPENSER. TeLIZABETH 



The laurell, meed of mightie conquerours 
And poets sage ; the firre that weepeth still ; 
The willow, worne of forlorne paramours ; 
The eugh/ obedient to the benders will ; 
The birch for shaftes ; the sallow for the mill ; 
The mirrhe sweete-bleeding in the bitter wound; 
The warlike beech; the ash for nothing ill; 
The fruitfuU olive ; and the platane round ; 
The carver holme ; the maple seeldom inward sound. 

X. 

Led with delight, they thus beguile the way, 
Untill the blustring storme is overblowne; 
When, weening to returne whence they did stray, 
They cannot finde that path, which first was showne, 
But wander too and fro in waies unknowne, 
Furthest from end then, when they neerest weene. 
That makes them doubt their wits be not their owne: 
So many pathes, so many turnings scene. 
That, which of them to take, in diverse doubt they been. 



UNA FOLLOWED BY THE LION. 
I. 

Nought is there under heaven's wide hollownesse, 
That moves more deare compassion of mind, 
Then beautie brought t' unworthie wretch ednesse 
Through envies snares, or fortunes freakes unkind. 
I, whether lately through her brightnes blynd, 
Or through allegeance, and fast fealty. 
Which I do owe unto all womankynd, 
Feele my hart perst with so great agony, 
When such I see, that all for pitty I could dy. 



And now it is empassioned^ so deepe. 

For fairest Unaes sake, of whom I sing. 

That my frayle eies these lines with teares do steepe, 

To think how she through guyleful handeling. 

Though true as touch, though daughter of a king, 

Though faire as ever living wight was fayre, 

Though nor in vi^ord nor deede ill meriting, 

^ Eugh, yew. ^ Empassioned, moved. 



I. 1. — Nought, &c.] In this canto the adventures of Una are resumed, from 
the ninth stanza of the preceding canto. 

II. 5. — True as touch,] i. e. true as the touchstone by which other sub- 
stances are tried. 



1558-1603.] SPENSER. 91 

Is from her Knight divorced in despayre, 
And her dew loves deryv'd' to that vyle Witches shayre. 

III. 

Yet she, most faithfull Ladie, all this while 
Forsaken, wofull, solitarie mayd. 
Far from all peoples preace,^ as in exile, 
In wildernesse and wastfull deserts strayd. 
To seeke her Knight ; who, subtily betrayd 
Through that late vision which th' Enchaunter wrought, 
Had her abandond : She, of nought affrayd. 
Through woods and wastnes wide him daily sought; 
Yet wished tydinges none of him unto her brought. 



One day, nigh wearie of the yrkesome way, 
From her unhastie beast she did alight; 
And on the grasse her dainty limbs did lay 
In secrete shadow, far from all mens sight ; 
From her fayre head her fillet she undight,^ 
And layd her stole aside : Her angels face. 
As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright, 
And make a sunshine in the shady place ; 
Did ever mortall eye behold such heavenly grace. 



It fortuned, out of the thickest wood 
A ramping lyon rushed suddeinly. 
Hunting full greedy after salvage blood : 
Soone as the royall Virgin he did spy, 
With gaping mouth at her ran greedily. 
To have attonce devourd her tender corse: 
But to the pray when as he drew more ny, 
His bloody rage aswaged with remorse. 
And, with the sight amazd, forgat his furious forse. 



Instead thereof he kist her wearie feet. 

And lickt her lilly hands with fawning tong; 

As* he her wronged innocence did weet.s 

O how can beautie maister the most strong. 

And simple truth subdue avenging wrong! 

Whose yielded pryde and proud submission, 

Still dreading death, when she had marked long, 

» BeryVd, transferred. ^ Preace, press or throng. ^ Undight, took 

off. * As, as if, * Weet, understand. 



V. 2. — A ramping lyon.] Upton conjectures the lion to be the English 
monarch, the defender of the faith. He seems rather to represent a manly 
and courageous people like the English, and the homage he pays to Una be- 
tokens the respect which would be felt by such a people to beauty and inno- 
cence. 



92 SPENSER. [ELIZABETH 

Her hart gan melt in great compassion ; 
And drizling teares did shed for pure affection. 

VII. 

" The lyon, lord of everie beast in field," 
Quoth she, "his princely puissance doth abate, 
And mightie proud to humble weake does yield, 
Forgetfull of the hungry rage, which late 
Him prickt, in pittie of my sad estate : — 
But he, my lyon, and my noble lord. 
How does he find in cruell hart to hate 
Her, that him lov'd, and ever most adord 
As the god of my life ? why hath he me abhord ?" 



Redounding* teares did choke th' end of her plaint, 
Which softly ecchoed from the neighbour wood; 
And, sad to see her sorrowfuU constraint, 
The kingly beast upon her gazing stood; 
With pittie calmd, downe fell his angry mood. 
At last, in close hart shutting up her payne, 
Arose the Virgin borne of heavenly brood. 
And to her snowy palfrey got agayne, 
To seeke her strayed Champion if she might attayne. 

IX. 

The lyon would not leave her desolate. 
But with her went along, as a strong gard 
Of her chast person, and a faythfull mate 
Of her sad troubles and mxisfortunes hard : 
Still, when she slept, he kept both watch and ward : 
And, when she wakt, he wayted diligent. 
With humble service to her will prepard : 
From her fayre eyes he took commanderaent, 
And ever by her lookes conceived her intent. 



DESCRIPTION OF PRINCE ARTHUR. 



At last she chaunced by good hap to meet 
A goodly Knight, faire marching by the way. 
Together with his Squyre, arrayed meet : 
His glitterand armour shined far away, 

^ Redoimdino; , flovvingf. 



XXIX. 2. — A goodly Knight.] This is Prince Arthur, in whose fauldess 
excellence Spenser is supposed to have represented his illustrious friend, -Sir 
Philip Sydney, whose beautiful character and splendid accomplishments kin- 
dled a warmth of admiration among his cotemporaries, of which we find it 
difficult to conceive in our colder and more prosaic age. 



1558-1603.] SPENSER. 93 

Like glauncing light of Phoebus brightest ray ; 
From top to toe no place appeared bare, 
That deadly dint of Steele endanger may : 
Athwart his brest a bauldrick brave he ware, 
That shind, like tw^inkling stars, with stones most pretious rare : 



And, in the midst thereof, one pretious stone 
Of wondrous worth, and eke of wondrous mights, 
Shapt like a Ladies head, exceeding shone. 
Like Hesperus emongst the lesser lights, 
And strove for to amaze the weaker sights : 
Thereby his mortal! blade full comely hong 
In yvory sheath, ycarv'd with curious slights,^ 
Whose hilts were burnisht gold ; and handle strong 
Of mother perle ; and buckled with a golden tong. 



His haughtie helmet, horrid all with gold, 
Both glorious brightnesse and great terrour bredd : 
For all the crest a dragon did enfold 
With greedie pawes, and over all did spredd 
His golden winges ; his dreadfull hideous hedd, 
Close couched on the bever, seemed to throw 
From flaming mouth bright sparckles fiery redd, 
That suddeine horrour to faint hartes did show; 
And scaly tayle was stretcht adowne his back full low, 

XXXII. 

Upon the top of all his loftie crest, 
A bounch of heares discolourd diversly, 
With sprincled pearle and gold full richly drest, 
Did shake, and seemd to daunce for iollity ; 
Like to an almond tree ymounted hye 
On top of greene Selinis all alone, 
With blossoms brave bedecked daintily ; 
Whose tender locks do tremble every one 
At everie little breath, that mider heaven is blowne. 

* Slights, devices. 



XXXIl. 6. — Greene Selinis.] Selinis is evidently the name of some hill or 
mountain, which I do not find in any book of reference within reach. Upton, 
strangely enough, supposes it to be Selinus, a city in Cilicia, to which he ap- 
plies an epithet, " Palmosa," applied by Virgil to another city of the same 
name in Sicily. After this double blunder, he remarks, with amusing simpli- 
city, ''The simile of the almond-tree is exceeding elegant, and much after 
the cast of that admired image in Homer," &c. Todd copies the whole v^^ith- 
out comment. 



04 SPENSER. [ELIZABETH 



DESCRIPTION OF BELPHCEBE. 



. Eftsoone' there stepped foorth 

A goodly Ladie clad in hunters weed, 
That seemd to be a woman of great -w^orth, 
And by her stately portance^^ borne of heavenly birth. 



Her face so faire, as flesh it seemed not, 
But hevenly pourtraict of bright angels hew, 
Cleare as the skye, withouten blame or blot, 
Through goodly mixture of complexions dew ; 
And in her cheekes the vermeil! red did shew 
Like roses in a bed of lillies shed, 
The which ambrosiall odours from them threw, 
And gazers sence with double pleasure fed, 
Hable to heale the sicke and to revive the ded. 

XXIII. 

In her faire eyes two living lamps did flame, 
Kindled above at th' Hevenly Makers light. 
And darted fyrie beanies out of the same. 
So passing persant,^ and so wondrous bright. 
That quite bereav'd the rash beholders sight; 
In them the blinded god his lustfull fyre 
To kindle oft assayd, but had no might; 
For, with dredd maiestie and awfull yre 
She broke his wanton darts, and quenched bace desyre. 



Her yvorie forhead, full of bountie brave, 
Like a broad table did itselfe dispred, 
For Love his loftie triumphes to engrave. 
And write the battailes of his great godhed : 
All good and honour inight therein be red; 
For there their dwelling was. And, when she spake, 
Sweete wordes, like dropping honny, she did shed ; 
And twixt the perles and rubins4 softly brake 
A silver sound, that heavenly musicke seemd to make. 

XXV. 

Upon her eyelids many Graces sate, 
Under the shadow of her even browes. 
Working belgardes^ and amorous retrate ;6 
And everie one her with a grace endowes, 

Eftsoone, immediately. ^ Portance, demeanor. ^ Persant, piercing. 

Rubins, rubies. ^ Belgardes, sweet looks. « Retrate, picture. 



XXI. 7. — A goodly Ladie, &c.] In the beautiful and elaborate portrait of 
Belphcebe, Spenser has drawn a flattered likeness of Queen Elizabeth. 



1558-1603.] SPENSER. 95 

And everie one with meekenesse to her bowes: 
So glorious mirrhour of celestiall grace, 
And soveraine moniment of mortall vowes, 
How shall frayle pen descrive her heavenly face, 
For feare, through want of skill, her beauty to disgrace ! 

XXVT. 

So faire, and thousand thousand times more faire, 
She seemd, when she presented was to sight; 
And was yclad, for heat of scorching aire, 
All in a silken camus^ lilly whight, 
Purfled2 upon with many a folded plight,^ 
Which all above besprinckled was throughout 
With golden ayguiets,4 that glistred bright 
Like twinckling starres ; and all the skirt about 
Was hemd with golden fringe. 

XXX. 

Her yellow lockes,^ crisped like golden wyre, 
About her shoulders weren loosely shed. 
And, when the winde emongst them did inspyre,^ 
They waved like a penon wyde dispred, 
And low behinde her backe were scattered : 
And, whether art it were or heedlesse hap, 
As through the flouring forrest rash she fled. 
In her rude heares sweet flowres themselves did lap,'^ 
And flourishing fresh leaves and blossoraes did enwrap. 



THE CARE OF ANGELS OVER MEN. 

Book ii. Canto S. 

I. 
Ais-D is there care in heaven ? And is there love 

In heavenly spirits to these creatures base, 

That may compassion of their evils move ? 

There is : — else much more wretched were the case 

Of men than beasts: But 0! th' exceeding grace 

Of Highest God that loves his creatures so, 

And all his workes with mercy doth embrace. 

That blessed Angels he sends to and fro, 
To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe ! 

TI. 

How oft do they their silver bowers leave 
To come to succor us that succor want! 
How oft do they with golden pinions cleave 
The Sittings skyes like flying pursuivant, 

' Camus, thin dress. ^ Purjled, embroidered, ^ Plight, plait. 

•' Aygnlets, tagged points. * xhe yellow locks of Qneen Elizabeth enter 

largely into the descriptions of her beauty by the poets of her reign. <■ In- 
spyre, breathe. ^ La-p, entwine themselves. * Yielding. 



96 SPENSER. [ELIZABETH 

Against fowle feendes to ayd us militant! 
They for us fight, they watch and dewly ward, 
And their bright squadrons round about us plant ; 
And all for love and nothing for reward : 
0, why should Hevenly God to men have such regard ! 



THE SEASONS. 
Book vii. Canto 7. 



So forth issew'd the Seasons of the yeare : 

First, lusty Spring all dight' in leaves of flowres 
That freshly budded and new bloosmes did beare, 
In which a thousand birds had built their bowres 
That sweetly sung to call forth paramours ; 
And in his hand a iavelin he did beare, 
And on his head (as fit for Avarlike stoures^) 
A guilt3 engraven morion^ he did weare ; 

That as some did him love, so others did him feare. 

XXIX. 

Then came the ioUy Sommer, being dight 
In a thin silken cassock colored greene. 
That was unlyned all, to be more light : 
And on his head a girlond well beseene 
He wore, from which as he had chauffed^ been 
The sweat did drop ; and in his hand he bore 
A bowe and shaftes, as he in forrest greene 
Had hunted late the libbard^ or the bore, 

And now would bathe his limbes with labor heated sore. 



Then came the Autumne all in yellow clad, 

As though he ioyed in his plentious store, 

Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad 

That he had banisht hunger, which to-fore 

Had by the belly oft him pinched sore : 

Upon his head a wreath, that was enrold 

With ears of corne of every sort, he bore ; 

And in his hand a sickle he did holde, 
To reape the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold.'^ 

XXXI. 

Lastly, came Winter cloathed all in frize. 

Chattering his teeth for cold that did him chill ; 
Whil'st on his hoary beard his breatb did freese, 
And the dull drops, that from his purpled bili^ 
As from a limbecks did adown distill: 
In his right hand a tipped stafFe he held, 
With which his feeble steps he stayed still ; 

* Adorned. ^ Encounters, ^ Gilded. * Helmet. ' Chafed. 

heated. ^ Leopard. ' Yielded. ^ Nose. ^ Retort. 



1558-1603.] SPENSER. 97 

For he was faint with cold, and weak with eld;« 
That scarce his loosed limbes he able was to weid.2 

The following are the four last verses of his hymn on 
HEAVENLY LOVE. 

With all thy heart, with all thy sonle and mind, 
Thou must Him love, and His bebeasts embrace; 
All other loves, with which the world doth bhnd 
Weake fancies, and stirre up aifections base, 
Thou must renounce and utterly displace. 
And give thy self unto Him full and free, 
That full and freely gave Himselfe to thee. 

Then shalt thou feele thy spirit so possest, 
And ra-vnsht Avith devouring great desire 
Of His dear selfe, that shall thy feeble brest 
Inflame with love, and set thee all on fire 
With burning zeale, through every part entire. 
That in no earthly thing thou shalt delight. 
But in His sweet and amiable sight. 

Thenceforth all worlds desire will in thee dye. 
And all eartlies glorie, on which men do gaze, 
Seeme dirt and drosse in thy pure-sighted eye, 
Compar"d to that celestiall beauties blaze, 
Whose glorious beames all fleshly sense doth daze, 
AVith admiration of their passing light. 
Blinding the eyes, and lumining the spright. 

Then shall thy ravisht soul inspired bee 
With heavenly thoughts, far above human skill, 
And thy bright radiant eyes shall plainely see 
Th' idee of His pure glorie present still 
Before thy face, that all thy spirits shall fill 
With sweete enragement^ of celestiall love, 
Kindled through sight of those faire things above. 

" I have just finished 'The Faerie Queen.' I never parted from a long 
poem with so much regret. He is a poet of a most musical ear — of a tender 
heart — of a pecuHarly soft, rich, fertile, and flowery fancy. His verse 
always flows with case and nature, most abundantly and sweetly ; his dif- 
i'usion is not only pardonable, but agreeable. Grandeur and energy are not 
his characteristic qualities. He seems to me a most genuine poet, and to be 
justly placed after Shakspeare and Milton, and above all other English 
poets." — Sir James ]\Iacki?itosh. 

"Spenser excels in the two qualities in which Chaucer is most deflcient 
— invention and fancy. The invention shown in his allegorical personages 
is endless, as the fancy shown in his description of them is gorgeous and 
delightful. He is the poet of romance. He describes things as in a splen- 
did and voluptuous dream."— J/azZ/^. 



Old age. - Wield, move. ^ Enragement , fervent admiration. 

7 



98 HOOKER. [ELIZABETH 

'•'No poet has ever had a more exquisite sense of the beautiful than 
Spenser." — Blackwood^ s Magazine. 

"His command of imagery is %vide, easy, and luxuriant. He threw the 
soul of harmony into our verse, and made it more warmly, tenderly, and 
magnificently descriptive than it ever was before, or, with a few exceptions, 
than it ever has been since. It must certainly be owned that in description 
he exhibits nothing of the brief strokes and robust power which characterize 
the very greatest poets ; but we shall nowhere find more airy and expansive 
images of visionary things, a sweeter tone of sentiment, or a finer flush in 
the colours of language, than in this Rubens of English poetry." — Camp- 
helVs Specimens, i. 125,^ 



RICHARD HOOKER. 1553—1600. 

Ox\E of the most learned and distinguished prose writers in the age of 
Elizabeth, was Richakd Hooker. He was born near Exeter in 1553. His 
parents, being poor, destined him for a trade; but he displayed at school so 
much aptitude for learning, and gentleness of disposition, that through the 
efforts of the Bishop of Salisbury he was sent to Oxford. Here he pur- 
sued his studies with great ardor and success, and became much respected 
for his modesty, learning and piety. In 1577 he was elected fellow of his 
college, and in 1581 took orders in the Episcopal Church. Soon afier this 
he went to preach in London, at Paul's Cross, and took lodgings in a house 
set apart for the reception of the preachers. The hostess, an artful and 
designing woman, perceiving Hooker's great simplicity of character, soon 
inveigled him into a marriage with her daughter, which proved a source of 
disquietude and vexation to him throughout his life. He was soon advanced 
in ecclesiastical preferment, and made master of the Temple, where he 
commenced his labors as forenoon preacher. But this situation accorded 
neither with his temper nor his hterary pursuits, and he petitioned the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury to remove him to "some quiet parsonage." He ob- 
tained his desire, and was presented by Elizabeth to the rectory of Bishop's 
Bourne, in Kent, where he spent the remainder of his life. He died in 
1600, of pulmonic disease, brought on by an accidental cold, when only 
forty-seven years of age. 

Hooker's great work is his " Ecclesiastical Polity," a defence of the 
Church of England against the Puritans. It doubtless owes its origin to 
the fact that the office of afternoon lecturer at the Temple was filled by 
Walter Travers, of highly Calvinistic views ; while the views of Hooker, 

* The best, or variorum edition of Spenser, (so called because it has all 
the notes of the various commentators,) is that of Todd, 8 vols., Svo. Lon- 
don, 1805. Read — an article on Spenser's Minor Poems in Retrospective 
Review, xii. 142: also, Edinburgh Review, vol. sxiv., June, 1815: also, a 
brilliant series of papers on the Faerie Queene. in Blackwood's Magazine, 
1834 and 1835. 



1558-1603.] HOOKER. 99 

both on church government and doctrines, were different. Indeed, so avow- 
edly did they preach in opposition to each other that the remark was fre- 
quently made that "the forenoon sermons spoke Canterbury, and the after- 
noon, Geneva." Such was the beginning of this great work, which is a 
monument of the learning, sagacity, and industry of the author, and con- 
tains the most profound, and the ablest defence of ecclesiastical establish- 
ments which has ever appeared. The style of the work, too, possesses 
some of the highest characteristics, perspicuity, purity, and strength, though 
generally, from the author's great familiarity with the classics, savoring a 
little too much of the idiom and construction of the Latin. The work, 
however, is not to be regarded simply as a theological treatise ; for it is still 
referred to as a great authority upon the whole range of moral and political 
principles. The praise that Hallam has given him, seems well deserved. 
"The finest, as well as the most philosophical writer of the Elizabethan 
period is Hooker. The first book of the Ecclesiastical Polity is at this day 
one of the masterpieces of English eloquence. His periods, indeed, are 
generally much too long and too intricate, but portions of them are often 
beautifully rhythmical; his language is rich in English idiom without vul- 
garity, and in words of a Latin sense without pedantry. He is more uni- 
formly solemn than the usage of later times permits, or even than writers of 
that time, such as Bacon, conversant with mankind as well as books, would 
have reckoned necessary ; but the example of ancient orators and philoso- 
phers upon themes so grave as those which he discusses, may justify the 
serious dignity from which he does not depart. Hooker is, perhaps, the first 
in England who adorned his prose with the images of poetry ; but this he 
has done more judiciously, and with more moderation than others of great 
name; and we must be bigots in Attic severity before we can object to 
some of his figures of speech." 

The following is the letter which he wrote to the Archbishop when he 
desired to retire to the country. 

My Lord — 

When I lost the freedom of my cell, which was my college, 
yet I found some degree of it in my quiet country parsonage. 
But I am weary of the noise and oppositions of this place; 
and indeed, God and nature did not intend me for contentions, 
but for study and quietness. And, my lord, my particular con- 
tests here with Mr. Travers, have proved the more unpleasant 
to me, because I believe him to be a good man ; and that belief 
hath occasioned me to examine mine own conscience concern- 
ing his opinions. And to satisfy that, I have consulted the 
Holy Scripture, and other laws, both human and divine, whe- 
ther the conscience of him, and others of his judgment, ought 
to be so far complied with by us, as to alter our frame of 
church-government, our manner of God's worship, our praising, 
and praying to Him, and our established ceremonies, as often 
as their tender consciences shall require us. And in this ex- 



100 HOOKER. [ELIZABETH 

amination I have not only satisfied myself, but have begun a 
treatise, in which I intend the satisfaction of others, by a de- 
monstration of the reasonableness of our laws of ecclesiastical 
polity. But, my lord, 1 shall never be able to finish what I 
have begun, unless I be removed into some quiet parsonage, 
where I may see God's blessings spring out of my mother 
earth, and eat my own bread in peace and privacy: a place 
where I may, without disturbance, meditate my approaching 
mortality, and that great account, which all flesh must give at 
the last day, to the God of all spirits. 



THE NECESSITY AND MAJESTY OF LAW. 

The stateliness of houses, the goodliness of trees, when we 
behold them, delighteth the eye: but that foundation which 
beareth up the one, that root which ministreth unto the other 
nourishment and life, is in the bosom of the earth concealed ; 
and if there be occasion at any time to search into it, such 
labor is then more necessary than pleasant, both to them 
which undertake it, and for the lookers on. In like manner, 
the use and benefit of good laws, all that live under tliem may 
enjoy with delight and comfort, albeit the grounds and first 
original causes from whence they have sprung be unknown, as 
to the greatest part of men they are. 

Since the time that God did first proclaim the edicts of his 
law upon the world, heaven and earth have hearkened unto his 
voice, and their labor hath been to do his will. He made a 
law for the rain; he gave his decree unto the sea, that the 
waters should not pass his comraandment . Now, if nature 
should intermit her course, and leave altogether, though it were 
for a while, the observation of her own laws ; if those princi- 
pal and mother elements of the world, whereof all things in 
this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now 
they have ; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our 
heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres 
should forget their wonted motions, and by irregular volubility 
turn themselves any way as it might happen; if the prince of 
the lights of heaven, which now, as a giant, doth run his un- 
wearied course, should, as it were, through a languishing faint- 
ness, begin to stand and to rest himself: if the moon should 
wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons of the year 
blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture, the w^inds 
breathe out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth 
be defeated of heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine 



1558-1603.] HOOKER. 101 

away, as children at the withered breasts of their mother, no 
longer able to yield them relief; what would become of man 
himself, whom these things do now all serve? See we not 
plainly, that obedience of creatures unto the law of nature is 
the stay of the whole world ? 

Of Law there can be no less acknowledged than that her 
seat is the bosom of God; her voice the harmony of the 
world: all things in heaven and earth do her homage; the very 
least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from 
her power. Both angels and men, and creatures of what con- 
dition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all 
with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace 
and joy. 

SUDDEN DEATH NOT DESIRABLE. 

Death is that which all men suffer, but not all men with 
one mind, neither all men in one manner. For being of neces- 
sity a thing common, it is through the manifold persuasions, 
dispositions, and occasions of men, with equal desert both of 
praise and dispraise, shunned by somxC, by others desired. So 
that absolutely we cannot discommend, we cannot absolutely 
approve, either willingness to live, or forwardness to die. And 
concerning the ways of death, albeit the choice thereof be only 
in his hands, who alone hath power over all flesh, and unto 
whose appointment we ought with patience meekly to submit 
ourselves (for to be agents voluntarily in our own destruction, 
is against both God and nature) ; yet there is no doubt, but in 
so great variety, our desires will and may lawfully prefer one 
kind before another. Is there any man of worth and virtue, 
although not instructed in the school of Christ, or ever taught 
what the soundness of religion meaneth, that had not rather 
end the days of this transitory life, as Cyrus in Xenophon, or 
in Plato, Socrates, is described, than to sink down with them, 
of whom Elihu hath said, 3Iomento moriuntur,^ there is scarce 
an instant between their flourishing and not being! But let us 
which know what it is to die, as Absalom, or Ananias and 
Sapphira died ; let us beg of God, that when the hour of our 
rest is come, the patterns of our dissolution may be Jacob, 
Moses, Joshua, David; who, leisureably ending their lives in 
peace, prayed for the mercies of God to come upon their pos- 
terity: replenished the hearts of the nearest unto them with 

' Job, xxxiv., 20. '^ In a moment shall they die." 



102 HOOKER. [ELIZABETH 

words of memorable consolation ; strengthened men in the fear 
of God, gave them wholesome instructions of life, and con- 
firmed them in true religion; in sura, taught the world no less 
virtuously how to die, than they had done before how to live/ 



THE EXCELLENCY OF THE PSALMS. 

The choice and flower of all things profitable in other books, 
the Psalms do both more briefly contain, and more movingly 
also express, by reason of that poetical form wherewith they 
are written. The ancients, when they speak of the Book of 
Psalms, use to fall into large discourses, showing how this part 
above the rest doth of purpose set forth and celebrate all the 
considerations and operations which belong to God; it magni- 
fieth the holy meditations and actions of divine men; it is of 
things heavenly an universal declaration, w^orking in them 
whose hearts God inspireth with the due consideration thereof, 
an habit or disposition of mind whereby they are made fit ves- 
sels, both for receipt and for delivery of whatsoever spiritual 
perfection. What is there necessary for man to know which 
the Psalms are not able to teach? They are to beginners an 
easy and familiar introduction, a mighty augmentation of all 
virtue and knowledge in such as are entered before, a strong 
confirmation to the most perfect amongst others. Heroical 
magnanimity, exquisite justice, grave moderation, exact wis- 
dom, repentance unfeigned, unwearied patience, the mysteries 
of God, the sufferings of Christ, the terrors of wrath, the com- 
forts of Grace, the works of Providence over this world, and 
the promised joys of that world which is to come, all good 
necessarily to be either known, or done, or had, this one celes- 
tial fountain yieldeth. Let there be any grief or disease inci- 
dent unto the soul of man, any wound or sickness named, for 
which there is not in this treasure-house a present comfortable 
remedy at all times ready to be found. Hereof it is, that w-e 
covet to make the Psalms especially familiar unto all. This is 
the very cause why we iterate the Psalms oftener than any 
other part of Scripture besides ; the cause wherefore we inure 
the people together with their minister, and not the minister 
alone, to read them as other parts of Scripture he doth. 

1 The reader here is reminded of the lines of Tickell on the death of 
Addison — 

" He taught us how to live, and ! too high 
The price of knowledge, taught us how to die." 



1558-1603.] UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 103 



UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. 



THE SOUL S ERRAND. 



The Soul's Errand, printed anonymously in an early collection of 
English poetry, is characterized by great strength, condensation, and sim- 
phcity. Mr. Campbell reckons it among the best pieces of the Elizabethan 
age. It has been ascribed to Sir Walter Raleigh, but without any evidence, 
and even without probability. 

THE soul's errand. 

Go, soul, the body's guest, 

Upon a thankless errand ; 
Fear not to touch the best, 

The truth shall be thy warrant ; 
Go, since I needs must die, 
And give the world the lie. 

Go, tell the Court it glows, 

And shines like rotten wood ; 
Go, tell the Church it shows 

What's good and doth no good; 
If Church and Court reply. 
Then give them both the lie. 

Tell potentates they live. 

Acting by others' actions, 
Not lov'd, unless they give. 

Not strong but by their factions; 
If potentates reply, 
Give potentates the lie. 

Tell men of high condition 

That rule affairs of state, 
Their purpose is ambition, 

Their practice only hate ; 
And if they once reply. 
Then give them all the lie. 

Tell them that brave it most, 

They beg for more by spending, 
Who, in their greatest cost, 

Seek nothing but commending ; 
And if they make reply. 
Then give them all the lie. 

Tell Zeal it lacks devotion, 

Tell Love it is but lust, 
Tell Time it is but motion, 

Tell Flesh it is but dust; 
And wish them not reply, 
For thou must give the lie. 



104 UNCERTAIN AUTHORS. [ELIZABETH 

Tell Age it daily wasteth, 

Tell honor how it alters, 
Tell Beauty how she blasteth, 

Tell Favor how she falters ; 
And as they shall reply, 
Give every one the lie. 

Tell. Wit how much it wrangles, 

In treble points of niceness ; 
Tell Wisdom she entangles 

Herself in overwiseness ; 
And when they do reply, 
Straight give them both the lie. 

Tell Physic of her boldness, 

Tell Skill it is pretension, 
Tell Charity of coldness. 

Tell Law it is contention ; 
And as they do reply. 
So give them still the lie. 

Tell Fortune of her blindness, 

Tell Nature of decay, 
Tell Friendship of unkindness, 

Tell Justice of delay; 
And if they will reply, 
Then give them all the lie. 

Tell arts they have no soundness, 

But vary by esteeming, 
Tell schools they "want profoundness; 

And stand too much on seeming; 
If arts and schools reply. 
Give arts and schools the lie. 

Tell Faith its fled the city, 

Tell how the country erreth, 
Tell manhood shakes off pity, 

Tell Virtue least preferreth ; 
And if they do reply. 
Spare not to give the lie. 

And when thou hast, as I 

Commanded thee, done blabbing. 
Although to give the lie 

Deserves no less than stabbing j 
Yet stab at thee who will, 
No stab the Soul can kilL 



1558-1603.] ENGLISH MINSTRELSY. 105 



ENGLISH MINSTRELSY.! 

The Minstrels were a class of men in the middle ages, who subsisted by 
the arts of poetry and music; who went about from place to place, and 
offered their poetical and musical wares wherever they could find a market. 
They appear to have accompanied their songs with mimicry and action, and 
in short to have practised such various means of diverting, as were much 
admired in those rude times, and supplied the want of more refined enter- 
tainment. These arts rendered them extremely popular and acceptable 
wherever they went. No great scene of festivity was considered complete 
that was not set off with the exercise of their talents, and so long as the 
spirit of chivalry existed, with which their songs were so much in keeping, 
they were protected and caressed. 

Of the origin of the Minstrels, it is difficult to find any thing satisfactory. 
The term seems to be derived from the Latin minister or ministellus, "an 
attendant," " an assistant," as the Minstrels were attendant upon persons 
of rank, and assistants at their entertainments. But whatever may be said 
of their origin, the Minstrels continued a distinct order of men till centuries 
after the Norman conquest, and there is but little doubt that most of the fine 
old ballads in English Literature, were not only sung, but written by the 
professed minstrel. 

There are many incidents in early English history which show how 
numerous was this body of men, and in what high estimation they were 
held. The one most familiar, is that of King Alfred's entering the Danish 
camp, in the disguise of a harper. Though known by his dialect to be a 
Saxon, the character he assumed procured him a hospitable reception, even 
in the tents and at the tables of the Danish princes. So also the story of 
Blondell's going unharmed over Europe, in search of Richard I., goes to 
prove the same facts. 

In the reign of Edward II. (1307 — 1327) such extensive privileges were 
claimed by Minstrels, and by dissolute persons assuming their character, 
that they became a public grievance, and their liberties were restricted by 
express statute. Finally, in the thirty-ninth year of the reign of Elizabeth, 
(1597,) this class of persons had so sunk in public estimation, that a statute 
was passed by which " Minstrels, wandering abroad, were included among 
rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars," and were adjudged to be punished 
as such. Truly, in the words of Burke, " the age of chivalry had gone." 

One of the most celebrated of the English Ballads, is the fine old ballad 
of Chevy Chase. Like one of the old paintings of the old masters, the 
more it is read the more it is admired. Sir Philip Sidney, in his " Defence 
of Poesy" says, "I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas, that I 
found not my heart more moved than with a trumpet;" and the classic 



' Read, Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry — Motherwell's Ancient 
and Modern Minstrelsy — Sir Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Bor- 
der — The Book of the British Ballads — Herd's Collection of Songs and 
Ballads. 



106 ENGLISH MINSTRELSY. [ELIZABETH 

Addison so much admired it as to devote two numbers of the Spectator, 
(70 and 74) to it, in its criticism and praise. Its subject is this. It was a 
regulation between those who lived near the borders of England and Scot- 
land, that neither party should hunt in the other's domains without leave. 
There had long been a rivalship between the two martial families, Percy of 
Northumberland and Douglas of Scotland, and the former had vowed to 
hunt for three days in the Scottish border, without asking leave of Earl 
Douglas, who was lord of the soil. Douglas did not fail to resent the insult, 
and endeavor to repel the intruders by force, which brought on a sharp 
conflict, which the ballad so graphically describes. It took place in the 
region of the Cheviott Hills, whence hs name. 

God prosper long our noble king, 

Our lives and safeties all ; 
A woful hunting once there did 

In Chevy-Chase befall; 

To drive the deer with hound and horn, 

Earl Percy took his way ; 
The child may rue that is unborn, 

The himting of that day. 

The stout Earl of Northumberland, 

A vow to God did make, 
His pleasure in the Scottish woods 

Three summer's days to take; 

The chiefest harts in Chevy-Chase 

To kill and bear away. 
These tidings to Earl Douglas came, 

In Scotland where he lay : 

Who sent Earl Percy present word, 

He would prevent his sport. 
The English Earl, not fearing that. 

Did to the woods resort, 

With fifteen hundred bow-men bold, 

All chosen men of might, 
Who knew full well in time of need 

To aim their shafts aright. 

The gallant greyhounds swiftly ran. 

To chase the fallow deer : 
On Monday they began to hunt, 

Ere day-light did appear ; 

And long before high noon they had 

An hundred fat bucks slain ; 
Then having dined, the drovers went 

To rouse the deer again. 

The bow-men mustered on the hills, 

Well able to endure ; 
Their backsides all, with special care, 

That day were guarded sure. 



1558-1603.] ENGLISH MINSTRELSY. 107 

The hounds ran swiftly through the woods, 

The nimble deer to take, 
That with their cries the hills and dales 

An echo shrill did make. 

Lord Percy to the quarry went, 

To view the slaughter'd deer; 
Quoth he, Earl Douglas promised 

This day to meet me here : 

But if I thought he would not come, 

No longer would I stay. 
With that, a brave young gentleman 

Thus to the Earl did say : 

Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come, 

His men in armor bright ; 
Full twenty hundred Scottish spears 

All marching in our sight ; 

All men of pleasant Tivydale, 
Fast by the river Tweed : 

cease your sports. Earl Percy said. 
And take your bows with speed : 

And now with me, my countrymen, 

Yoitr courage forth advance ; 
For there was never champion yet. 

In Scotland or in France, 

That ever did on horseback come, 
But if my hap it were, 

1 durst encounter man for man. 
With him to break a spear. 

Earl Douglas on his milk-white steed, 

Most like a baron bold, 
Rode foremost of his company, 

Whose armor shone like gold. 

Show me, said he, whose men you be 

That hunt so boldly here. 
That, without my consent, do chase 

And kill my fallow-deer. 

The first man that did answer make. 

Was noble Percy he ; 
Who said, we list not to declare, 

Nor show whose men we be : 

Yet we will spend our dearest blood, 

Thy chiefest harts to slay. 
Then Douglas swore a solemn oath. 

And thus in rage did say, 

Ere thus I will out-braved be, 

One of us two shall die : 
I know thee well, an earl thou art; 

Lord Percy, so am I. 



108 ENGLISH MINSTRELSY. [^ELIZABETH 

But trust me, Percy, pity it were, 

And great offence to kill 
Any of these our guiltless men, 

For they have done no ill. 

Let thou and I the battle try, 

And set our men aside. 
Accurst be he, Earl Percy said, 

By whom this is denied. 

Then stepped a gallant squire forth, 

Witherington was his name, 
Who said, I would not have it told 

To Henry our king for shame, 

That ere my captain fought on foot, 

And I stood looking on ; 
You be two earls, said Witherington, 

And I a squire alone; 

I'll do the best that do I may. 

While I have power to stand : 
While I have power to wield my sword, 

I'll fight with heart and hand. 

Our English archers bent their bows, 

Their hearts were good and true ; 
At the first flight of arrows sent. 

Full fourscore Scots they slew. 
******* 

They closed full fast on every side. 

No slackness there was found; 
And many a gallant gentleman 

Lay gasping on the ground. 

O dear ! it was a grief to see. 

And likewise for to hear, 
The cries of men lying in their gore. 

And scattered here and there. 



This fight did last from break of day, 

Till setting of the sun; 
For when they rung the evening-bell, 

The battle scarce was done. 

With stout Earl Percy, there was slain 

Sir John of Egerton. 
Sir Robert Ratcliff, and Sir John, 

Sir James that bold baron: 

And with Sir George and stout Sir James. 

Both knights of good account, 
Good Sir Ralph Raby there was slain, 

Whose prowess did surmount. 



1558-1603.] ENGLISH MINSTRELSY. 109 

For Witherington needs must I wail, 

As one in doleful dumps ;• 
For when liis legs were smitten off, 

He fought upon his stumps. 
******* 
Of fifteen hundred Englishmen, 

Went home but fifty-tliree; 
The rest were slain in Chevy-Chase, 

Under the greenwood tree. 

Next day did many widows come, 

Their husbands to bewail ; 
They washed their wounds in brinish tears. 

But all would not prevail. 

Their bodies, bathed in purple gore. 

They bare with them away: 
They kiss'd them dead a thousand times, 

Ere they were clad in clay. 
******* 
God save our king, and bless this land 

With plenty, joy, and peace ; 
And grant henceforth, that foul debate 

'Tv/ixt noblemen may cease. 

Two more ballads must suffice. The first, though not of very ancient 
date, has been said to be "perhaps the most poetical and picturesque of 
any ballad existing." It is entitled 

THE TWO CORBIES. 

TuEUE were two corbies sat on a tree 

Large and black as black might be, 

And one the other gan say, 

Where shall we go and dine to-day ? 

Shall we go dine by the wild salt sea 1 

Shall we go dine 'neath the greenwood tree '? 

As I sat on the deep sea sand, 

I saw a fair ship nigh at land, 

I waved my wings, I bent my beak, 

Tli# ship sunk, and I heard a shriek; 

There they lie, one, two, and three, 

I shall dine by the wild salt sea. 



' i. e. "I, as one in deep concern, must lament." The construction here 
has generally been misunderstood. The old MS. read < woful dumps.' The 
corresponding verse in the old ballad of the " Battle of Otterl)oiirnp," from 
which many incidents in this are taken, is as follows : 
"For Wetharryngton my harte was wo, 
That ever he slayne shulde be; 
For when both his leggis wear hewyne in to. 
Yet he knyled and fought on hys kne." 



110 ENGLISH MINSTRELSY. [ELIZABETH 

Come, I will show ye a sweeter sight, 

A lonesome glen, and a new-slain knight ; 

His blood yet on the grass is hot, 

His sword half-drawn, his shafts unshot. 

And no one kens that he lies there, 

But his hawk, his hound, and his lady fair. 

His hound is to the hunting gane, 
His hawk to fetch the wild fowl hame. 
His iady's away "with another mate. 
So we shall make our dinner sweet; 
Our dinner's sure, our feasting free, 
Come, and dine by the greenwood tree. 

Ye shall sit on his white hause-bane,i 
I will pick out his bonny blue een; 
Ye'U take a tress of his yellow hair, 
To theak yere nest when it grows bare : 
The gowden2 down on his young chin 
Will do to sewe my young ones in. 

O, cauld and bare will his bed be. 
When winter storms sing in the tree ; 
At his head a turf, at his feet a stone. 
He "will sleep, nor hear the maiden's moan; 
O'er his white bones the birds shall fly, 
• The wild deer bound, and foxes cry. 



THE DEMON LOVER. 

This fine old ballad first appeared in Sir Walter Scott's " Minstrelsy of 
the Scottish Border," and is reprinted by Mr. Motherwell in his valuable 
volume, entitled " Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern." 

" where have you been, my long, long love. 

This seven long years and mair ?" 
" I'm come to seek my former vows 

Ye granted me before." 

" hold your tongue of your former vows. 

For they will breed sad strife ; 
hold your tongue of your former vows. 

For I am become a wife." 

He turned him right and round about, 

And the tear blinded his e'e : 
"I wad never hae trodden on Irish ground. 

If it had not been for thee. 



" I might have had a king's daughter. 

Far, far beyond the sea ; 
I might have had a king's daughter. 

Had it not been for love o' thee." 



The neck bone — a phrase for the neck, 2 Golden. 



1558-1603.] ENGLISH MINSTRELSY. Ill 

" If ye might have had a king's daughter, 

Yersell ye had to blame : 
Ye might have taken the king's daughter, 

For ye kend that I was nane." 

" false are the vows of womankind. 

But fair is their false bodie ; 
I never would hae trodden on Irish ground, 

Had it not been for love o' thee." 

" If I was to leave my husband dear, 
And my two babes also, 

M^hat have you to take me to, 
If with you I should go!" 

" I have seven ships upon the sea. 

The eighth brought me to land; 
With four-and-twenty bold mariners, 

And music on every hand." 

She has taken up her two little babes, 

Kissed them baith cheek and chin ; 
" fare ye weel, my ain two babes, 

For I'll never see you again." 
• 

She set her foot upon the ship, 

No mariners could she behold ; 
But the sails were o' the taffetie, 

And the masts o' the beaten gold. 

She had not sailed a league, a league, 

A league but barely three, 
When dismal grew his countenance, 

And druralie grew his e'e. 

The masts that were like the beaten gold, 

Bent not on the heaving seas ; 
And the sails,- that were o' the taffetie. 

Filled not in the eastland breeze. 

They had not sailed a league, a league, 

A league but barely three, 
Until she espied his cloven foot 

And she wept right bitterly. 

"0 hold your tongue of your weeping," says he, 
" Of your weeping now let me be ; 

1 will show you how the lilies grow 

On the banks of Italy." 

"0 what are yon, yon pleasant hills, 

The sun shines sweetly on?" 
"0 yon are the hills of heaven!" he said, 

"Where you will never win." 



112 TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE. [jAMES 

" whaten a mountain is yon," she said, 

"All so dreary wi' frost and snow?"' 
"0 yon is the mountain of hell," he cried, 

" Where you and I will go," 

And aye, when she turned her round about. 

Aye taller he seemed to be ; 
Until the tops of the gallant ship 

Nae taller were than he. 

The clot^ds grew dark, and the wind grew loud, 

And the levin filled her e'e : 
And waesome wailed the snow-white sprites. 

Upon the gurlie sea. 

He struck the topmast wi' his hand, 

The foremast wi' his knee ; 
And he brake that gallant ship in twain. 

And sank her in the sea. 



TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE. 

No literary undertaking in any age of English Literature has proved to be 
80 important in its results, as the Translation of the Bible under the direc- 
tion of King James I. Of the labors of Wiclif in translating the Bible from 
the Latin Vulgate, and of the successful exertions of Tyndale, in face of 
every danger and even of death, in giving to his countrymen a version of the 
New Testament in their vernacular tongue, short accounts are given un- 
der the lives of those scholars, together with specimens of their respective 
translations. Subsequently, very many versions appeared, each diflering in 
some respects from its predecessors, until, at the accession of James I. com- 
plaints of these discrepancies became general, and a new translation was 
desired. At the great conference held in 1604, at Hampton Court, between 
the established and puritan clergy, all parties agreeing in their disapproba- 
tion of the version of the scriptures then most generally used, the king com- 
missioned fifty-four men, the most learned in the universities and other 
places, to commence a new translation. At the same time he required the 
bishops to inform themselves of all the learned men within their several 
dioceses, who had acquired especial skill in the Greek and Hebrew lan- 
guages, and who had taken great pains in their private studies to investi- 
gate obscure passages and to correct mistakes in former English translations, 

' Milton makes part of the torments of the damned to 

" feel by turns the bitter change 
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce, 
From beds of raging fire to starve in ice 
Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine 
Immovable, infix'd, and frozen round. 
Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire." 

Paradise Lost, ii. 598. 



1803-1625.] TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE. 113 

and to charge them to communicate their observations to the persons thus 
employed to translate the whole scriptures. 

Before the work was begun, seven of the persons nominated for it were 
either dead or declined to engage in the task : the remaining forty-seven 
were classed under six divisions, a certain portion of scripture being assigned 
to each. They proceeded to their task at Oxford, Cambridge, and West- 
minster, each individual translating the portion assigned to his division, and 
when all in any one division had finished, they met together, compared 
their several translations, and decided all differences, and settled upon what 
they deemed the best translation. When the several divisions had finished 
they all met together, and one and another by turns read the nev/ version, 
whilst all the rest held in their hands either copies of the original, or some 
valuable version. If any one objected to the translation of any passage, the 
reader stopped to allow time for discussion, comparison, and final decision. 

The labor appears to have commenced in the spring of 1604, and the 
result was published in 1611, under the following title. " The Holy Bible, 
conteyning the Old Testament and the New, newly translated out of the 
Originall Tongues, and with the former Translations diligently compared 
and revised by his Majesties speciall Commandement.'''' As a translation 
this is generally most faithful and an excellent specimen of the language of 
the time. Dr. Adam Clarke remarks, "The translators have seized the 
very spirit and soul of the original, and expressed this, almost everywhere, 
with pathos and energy : they have not only made a standard translation, 
but have made this translation the standard of our language." This is 
eminently true, for in all human probabihty this translation will never be 
changed. 

Still, strict truth and justice require us to say that there are some defects 
and errors, in our present version, which a more advanced state of biblical 
science enables us to detect. The translators had not access to the various 
sources of bibUcal criticism and elucidation which we enjoy at the present 
day ; such as the collation of ancient manuscripts and versions ; the multi- 
plication of grammars and lexicons ; the enlarged comparison of kindred 
dialects ; and the researches of travellers into the geography, manners, 
customs, and natural history of the East.' But after all, instead of dwelling 
upon errors and discrepancies, which are really unimportant, we must ever 
wonder that there are so few, and admire the fidelity, the learning, and the 
wisdom of the great and good men that executed the work.^ 

* For some very able remarks on our present version, see Professor Bush's 
Introduction to his Notes on Genesis. 

2 One of the greatest defects in our translation is a want of uniformity in 
rendering, both in regard to single words and to phrases. To give a few 
instances of what I mean. The Greek adverb iu^u^ (euthus), which means 
" directly," << immediately," is translated in Matt. iii. 16, by " straightway," 
xiii. 20, by "anon:" xiii. 21, by << by and by:" Mark i. 12, by "imme- 
diately :" John xix. 34, by " forthwith." In all these places " immediately" 
would have better expressed the original : " by and by" is peculiarly infe- 
licitous. So the verb /uie^iuvars (merimndte) in Matt. vi. 25, is rendered " take 
no thought;" in Phil. iv. 6, '•' be careful." The latter comes nearer the true 

8 



114 SACKVILLE. [ J AMES I. 



THOMAS SACKVILLE, 1536—1608. 

Thomas Sackyille, ultimately Earl of Dorset and Lord High Treasurer 
of England, deserves consideration, if for no other reason, as the author of 
the first regular English tragedy, entitled Ferrex and Porrex. Every act of 
this play is closed by something hke the chorus of the Greek Tragedy, 
namely, an ode in long-lined stanzas, drawing back, the attention of the 
audience to the substance of what has just passed, and illustrating it by 
moral reflections. The following ode closes the third act, the moral beau- 
ties as well as the spirit of which must strike every reader. Sir Philip 
Sidney, in his "Defence of Poesy," says that this whole tragedy is "full 
of notable morality." 

The lust of kingdom know^s no sacred faith, 
No rule of reason, no regard of right. 
No kindly love, no fear of heaven's wrath : 
But wdth contempt of gods' and man's despiglit, 

Through bloody slaughter doth prepare the ways 
To fatal sceptre, and accursed reign : 
The. son so loathes the father's lingering days, 
Nor dreads his hand in brothers" blood to stain! 

O wretched prince! nor dost thou yet record 
The yet fresh murders done within the land 
Of thy forefather, when the cruel sword 
Bereft Morgain his life with cousin's hand ! 

Thus fatal plagues pixrsue the guilty race, 
Whose murderous hand imbrued with guiltless blood, 
Asks vengeance still before the heavens' face. 
With endless mischief on the cursed brood. 

The "s^-icked child thus brings to woful sire 
The mournful plaints, to waste his 'weary life : 
Thus do the cruel flames of civil fire 
. Destroy the parted reign with hateful strife : 
And hence doth spring the well, from which doth flow 
The dead black streams of mourning, plaint, and woe. 

But the poem by which Sackville is best known, is entitled "The Mirror 
for Magistrates." In h, most of the illustrious but unfortunute characters 

meaning, which is, " be not distracted about," " be not over anxious about." 
In justice, however, to the translators, I should say that in King James' day, 
the phrase " take no thought" had a much stronger meaning than it now has, 
being nearly equivalent to " let not your thoughts be unduly exercised." In 
many other cases also the present translation fails to express the sense, 
owing to changes which our language has undergone. One more instance 
will suffice. David says (Psalm cxix. 147), " I prevented the dawning of the 
morning," where "prevent" is used in its original Latin sense of "going 
before," " anticipating," and in King James' day it was so understood. 
Now, we know, it is used in the sense of to " hinder." This is a most inte- 
resting subject of inquiry, but this is not the appropriate place to pursue it. 



1603-1625.] SACKViLLE. 115 

of English history, from the Conquest to the end of the fourteenth century, 
are made to pass in review before the poet, who, conducted by Sorrow, 
descends, lil^e Dante, into the infernal regions. Each character recites his 
own misfortunes in a separate soliloquy. But Sack ville finished only the 
preface called the "Induction," and one legend, the Life of the Duke of 
Buckingham. He left the completion of the whole to Richard Baldwyne 
and George Ferrers. These called in others to aid them, and the whole 
collection or set of poems was published in 1559, with this title, "A Mirror 
for Magistrates, wherein may be seen by example of others, with how 
grievous plagues vices are punished, and how frail and how unstable worldly 
prosperity is found, even of those whom fortune seemeth most highly to 
favor.'' 

The whole poem is one of a very remarkable kind for the age, and the 
part executed by Sackville exhibits a strength of description and a power of 
drawing allegorical characters, scarcely inferior to Spenser, and had he 
completed the whole, and with the same power as that exhibited in the 
commencement, he would have ranked among the first poets of England. 



ALLEGORICAL CHARACTERS IN HELL. 

And first, within the porch and jaws of hell, 
Sat deep Remorse of Conscience, all besprent 
With tears; and to herself oft would she tell 
Her wretchedness, and, cursing, never stent 
To sob and sigh, but ever thus lament 
With thoughtful care ; as she that, all in vain. 
Would wear and waste continually in pain: 

Her eyes unstedfast, rolling here and there, 

Whirl 'd on each place, as place that vengeance brought, 

So was her mind continually in fear, 

Tost and tormented with the tedious thought 

Of those detested crimes which she had wrought ; 

With dreadful cheer, and looks thrown to the sky, 

Wishing for death, and yet she could not die. 

Next, saw we Dread, all trembling how he shook, 
With foot uncertain, profer'd here and there ; 
Benumb'd with speech; and, with a ghastly look, 
Searched everyplace, all pale and dead for fear, 
His cap born up with staring of his hair; 
'Stoin'd and amazed at his own shade for dread, 
And fearing greater dangers than was need. 

And, next, within the entry of this lake, 
Sat fell Revenge, gnashing her teeth for ire; 
Devising means how she may vengeance take; 
Never in rest, 'till she have her desire ; 
But frets within so far forth with the fire 
Of wreaking flames, that now determines she 
To die by death, or 'veng'd by death to be. 



116 SACKVILLE. [jAMES I, 

When fell Reves-ge, with bloody foul pretence, 
Had show'd herself, as next in order set, 
With trembling limbs we softly parted thence, 
'Till in our eyes another sight we met ; 
When fro my heart a sigh forthwith I fet. 
Ruing, alas, upon the woeful plight 
Of Misery, that next appear"d in sight : 

His face was lean, and some-deal pin'd away, 
And eke his hands consumed to the bone j 
But, what his body was, I cannot say, 
For, on his carcase raiment had he none, 
Save clouts and patches pieced one by one ; 
"With staff in hand, and scrip on shoulders cast, 
His chief defence against the winter's blast : 

His food, for most, was wild fruits of the tree. 
Unless sometime some crumbs fell to his share. 
Which in his wallet long, God wot, kept he. 
As on the which full daint'ly would he fare ; 
His drmk, the running stream, his ciip, the bare 
Of his palm closed; his bed, the hard cold ground: 
To this poor hfe was Misery ybound. 

Whose wretched state when we had Avell beheld. 

With tender ruth on him, and on his fears, 

In thoughtful cares forth then om- pace we held ; 

And, by and by, another shape appears 

Of greedy Care, still brushing up the briers ; 

His knuckles knob'd, liis flesh deep dinted in. 

With tawed hands, and hard ytamied skua : 

The morrow grey no sooner hath begun 

To spread his light e'en peeping in our eyes, 

But he is up, and to his work yrim; 

But let the night's black misty mantles rise, 

And witlr foul dark never so much disguise 

The fair bright day, yet ceaseth he no while. 

But hath his candles to prolong his toil. 

By him lay hea^y Sleep, the cousin of Death, 
Flat on the ground, and stiU as any stone. 
A very corpse, save yieldmg forth a breath ; 
Small keep took he, whom fortune frowned on, 
Or whom she lifted up into tlie throne 
Of high renown, but, as a living death, 
So dead alive, of life he drew the breath : 

The body's rest, the quiet of the heart, 
The travel's ease, the still night's feer was he, 
And of our life in earth the better part ; 
Riever of sight, and yet in Avhom we see 
Things oft that [tyde] and oft that never be; 
Without respect, esteeming] equally 
King CrCESUs' pomp and Irus' poverty. 



1603-1625.] SACKVILLE. 117 

And next in order sad, Oid-Age we found : 
His beard all hoar, his eyes hollow and blind ; 
With drooping cheer still poring on the ground, 
As on the place where nature him assign 'd 
To rest, when that the sisters had untwin"d 
His vital thread, and ended with their knife 
The fleeting course of fast dechning hfe : 

Crook-back'd he was, tooth-shaken, and blear-eyed ; 
Went on three feet, and sometime crept on four ; 
With old lame bones, that rattled by his side; 
His scalp all pil'd, and he with eld forelore, 
His wither"d fist still knocking at death's door ; 
Funibhng, and driveling, as he draws his breath; 
For brief, the shape and messenger of Death. 

And fast by him pale INIaiadt was placed: 
Sore sick in bed, her colour all foregone; 
Bereft of stomach, savour, and of taste, 
Ne could she brook no meat but broths alone; 
Her breath corrupt; her keepers every one 
Abhorring her ; her sickness past recure, 
Detestmg physic, and all physic's cure. 

But, oh, the doleful sight that then we see ! 
We turn"d our look, and on the other side 
A grisly shape of FAMi?fE mought we see : 
With greedy looks, and gaping mouth, that cried 
And roar'd for meat, as she should there have died ; 
Her body thm and bare as any bone, 
Whereto was left nought but the case alone. 

And that, alas, was gnawen every where, 
All full of holes ; that I ne mought refrain 
From tears, to see how she her arms could tear. 
And with her teeth gnash on the bones in vain, 
When, all for nought, she fain would so sustain 
Her starven corpse, that radier seem'd a shade 
Than any substance of a creature made : 

Great was her force, whom stone-wall could not stay: 

Her tearing nails snatching at all she saw ; 

With gaping jaws, that by no means ymay 

Be satisfy"d from hunger of her maw. 

But eats herself as she that hath no law ; 

Gnawing, alas, her carcase all in vain. 

Where you may count each sinew, bone, and vein. 

Lastly, stood War, in glittering arms yclad. 

With visage grim, stern look, and blackly hued : 

In his right hand a naked sword he had, 

That to die hilts was all with blood imbrued ; 

And in his left (that kings and kingdoms rued) 

Famine and fire he held, and therewithal 

He razed towns and threw down towers and all : 



118 SHAKSPEARE. [ J AMES I. 

Cities he sack'd, and realms (that whilom flower'd 
In honour, glory, and rule, above the rest) 
He overwhelmxl, and all their fame devoured, 
Consum'd, destroy "d, wasted, and never ceas'd, 
'Till he their wealth, their name, and all oppress'd : 
His face forehew'd \A-ith wounds ; and by his side 
There hung his targe, with gashes deep and wide. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 

Then first came Henry Duke of Buckingham, 
His cloak of black all piled, and quite forlorn. 
Wringing his hands, eyid Fortune oft doth blame, 
Which of a duke had made him now her scorn; 
With ghastly looks, as one in manner lorn. 
Oft spread his arms, stretched hands he joins as fast. 
With rueful cheer, and vapoured eyes upcast. 

His cloak he rent, his manly breast he beat ; 
His hair all torn, about the place it lain : 
My heart so molt to see his grief so great, 
As feelingly, methought, it dropped away: 
His eyes they whirled about withouten stay: 
With stormy sighs the place did so complain, 
As if his heart at each had burst in twain 

Thrice he began to tell his doleful tale, 

And thrice the sighs did swallow up his voice: 

At each of which he shrieked so withal, 

As though the heavens ryved with the noise; 

Till at the last, recovering of his voice. 

Supping the tears that all his breast berained. 

On cruel Fortune weeping thus he plained. 



W^ILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, 1564—1616. 

William Shaespeare,^ the great dramatic poet, not of England oniy, 
but of the world, was born at Stratford, on the Avon, in the county of 

^ This is Henry, Duke of Buckingham, the principal instrument of King 
Richard III. What an admirable impersonation of extreme wretchedness. 

- Read Drake's " Shakspeare and his Times" — Johnson's Preface to Shak- 
speare — Hazlitt's "Characters of Shakspeare's Plays" — Campbell's Essay on 
English Poetry — Richardson's Analysis of Shakspeare — Schlegel's Lectures 
on Dramatic Art — Pope's Preface to Shakspeare — Dodd's Beauties — Price's 
••' Wisdom and Genius of Shakspeare." The best family edition is Bowdler"s 
"Family Shakspeare," 8 vols. 8vo., recently printed in one large octavo. 
The best critical edition is the variorum of Isaac Reed, London, 1S13, 23 
vols., with the Prolegomena and Addenda. "The proof sheets of this edi- 
tion were corrected by Mr. Harris, Librarian of the Royal Institution."— 
Lowndes. 



1603-1625.] SHAKSPEARE. 119 

Warwick, April 23, 1564. Of his early life, of his education, of his per- 
sonal appearance, manners, and habits, we know scarcely anything. "No 
letter of his writing, no record of his conversation, no character of him 
drawn with any fulness by a cotemporary, can be produced."! That he 
was a very earnest, though, it may be, an irregular student, no one can 
doubt: the numerous felicitous allusions, throughout his dramas, to the 
history and mythology of the ancients, prove that, if not a critical scholar, 
he was deeply imbued with the true spirit of classical literature, and pos- 
sessed a most discriminating taste to seize upon their beauties, and make 
them his own. In 1582, when but eighteen years of age, he married Anne 
Hathaway, a farmer's daughter, who was seven years older than himself, 
and who resided about a mile from Stratford. About the year 1587 he re- 
moved to London, where he soon rose to distinction in the theatre, of seve- 
ral of which he became in a few years proprietor, so that his income is 
estimated as equivalent to about five thousand dollars of our money now. 
The cause of his unexampled success was doubtless his immortal dramas, 
the delight and wonder of his age — ' ' that so did take Eliza and our James," 
as Ben Jonson has recorded, and as is confirmed by various authorities. 
Though he lived in familiar intercourse with the nobles, the wits, and the 
poets of his day, he looked forward to the time when he should retire to his 
native town, and with this view he purchased New Place, the principal 
house in Stratford, with more than a hundred acres of ground attached. 
" The year 1612 has been assigned as the date of his final retirement to the 
country. In the fulness of his fame, with a handsome competency, and 
before age had chilled the enjoyment of life, the poet returned to his native 
town to spend the remainder of his days among the quiet scenes and the 
friends of his youth. Four years were spent by Shakspeare in this digni- 
fied retirement, and the history of literature scarcely presents another such 
picture of calm felicity and satisfied ambition. He died on the 23d of April, 
1616, having just completed his fifty second year. His widow survived him 
seven years. He had three children, one son and two daughters. The 
former died in 1596. Both the latter were married, and one had three sons, 
but all these died without issue, and there now remains no lineal representa- 
tive of the great poet." 

The numerous authors who have written upon Shakspeare and his dramas, 
some of whom are referred to in the note, render it unnecessary for us to 
go into a new critical examination of his character. Indeed it would be 
hardly possible to say any thing new. The subject seems to be exhausted. 
And to write in eulogy would be somewhat presumptuous, when he has so 
exquisitely pronounced his own: — 

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, 

To throw- a perfume on the violet, 

To smooth the ice, or add another hue 

Unto tlie rainbow, or with taper light 

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, 

Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. 

' Hallam. 



120 SHAKSPEARE. [jAMES I. 

One of his cotemporaries, Ben Johnson, thus characterizes him. "1 loved 
the man, and do honor to his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as 
any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature: had an ex- 
cellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions; wherein he flowed with 
that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped. His 
wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too ! But he 
redeemed his vices with his virtues ; there was even more in him to be 
praised than pardoned." But Dryden has portrayed his genius in the fol- 
lowing nervous and masterly lines, which have been served up to us in a 
diluted state by many a modern critic. 

"To begin, then, with Shakspeare. He was the man who, of all mo- 
dern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive 
soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew 
them, not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing you more 
than see it — you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learn- 
ing, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he 
needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards and 
found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike ; were he so, I should 
do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many 
times flat and insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious 
swelling into bombast. But he is always great when some great occasion 
is presented to him ; no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, 
and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets, 

Quantum lenta sclent inter viburna cupressi.-'' 

The consideration of this, made Mr. Hales of Eaton say, "that there was no 
subject of which any poet ever wrote, but he would produce it much better 
done in Shakspeare.'' 

The difiiculty of making selections from Shakspeare must be obvious. 
If of character, his characters are as numerous and diversified as those in 
human life ; if of styles he has exhausted all styles, and has one for each 
description of poetry and action ; if of wit, humor, satire or pathos, where 
shall our choice fall where all are so abundant?^ But we must begin: the 
greater difficulty, however, will be to know where to stop. 

FROM " THE MERCHANT OF VENICE." 

Portia, a beautiful and accomplished heiress, is sought in marriage by a 
large number of suitors, whose fate is to be determined by the choice they 
make of one of three caskets, " gold, silver, and base lead." The follow- 
ing are the comments of three of the suitors : 

Enter Portia, with the Prince of Morocco. 
; Por. Now make your choice. 

Mor. The first, of gold, who this inscription bears; — 

^ As the cypresses are wont to do among the slender shrubs. 
2 Chambers' Cyclopedia. 



1603-1625.] SHAKSPEARE. 121 

"Who chooseth me, shall gain what many men desire." 
The second, silver, which this promise carries ; — 
" Who chooseth me, shall get as much as he deserves.'' 
This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt: — 
"Who chooseth me, must give and hazard all he hath. — " 
How shall I know if I do choose the right? 

For. The one of them contains my picture, prince: 
If you choose that, then I am yours withal. 

Mor. Some god direct my judgment: Let me see, 
I will survey the inscriptions back again : 
What says this leaden casket "? 
"Who chooseth me, must give and hazard all he hath.'" 

Must give For what? for lead? hazard for lead? 

This casket threatens : Men, that hazard all, 

Do it in hope of fair advantages : 

A golden naind stoops not to shows of dross ; 

I'll then nor give, nor hazard aught for lead. 

What says the silver, with her virgin hue? 

" Who chooseth me, shall get as much as he deserves." 

As much as he deserves? — Pause there, Morocco, 

And weigh thy value with an even hand : 

If thou be'st rated by thy estimation. 

Thou dost deserve enough ; and yet enough 

May not extend so far as to the lady ; 

And yet to be afeard of my deserving. 

Were but a weak disabling of myself. 

As much as I deserve! — Why, that's the lady: 

I do in birth deserve her, and in fortunes, 

In graces, and in qualities of breeding ; 

But, more than these, in love I do deserve. 

What if I stray'd no farther, but chose here? — 

Let's see once more this saying gravxl in gold, 

' Who chooseth me, shall gain what many men desire.' 

Why, that's the lady; all the world desires her: 

Dehver me the key ; 

Here do I choose, and thrive I as I may ! 

For. There, take it, prince, and if my form lie there, 
Then I am yours. 

[Unlocking the gold casket. 
Mor. ! what have we here ? 
A carrion deaths within whose empty eye 
There is a written scroll! I'll read the writing. 

All that glisters is not gold: 

Often have you heard that told : 

Many a man his life halh sold, 

But my outside to behold : 

Gilded tombs do ivorms infold. 

Had you been as loise as hold, 

Young in limbs, injnds:ment old, 

Your answer had not been hiscroll'd : 

Fare you ivcll ; your suit is cold. 
Mor. Cold, indeed ; and labor lost : 
Then, farewell, heat ; and welcome frost. — 



122 SHAKSPEARE. 

Portia, adieu! I have too griev'd a heart 

To take a tedious leave: thus losers part. \^Exit. 

Enter Prince of Arragon. 

For. Behold, there stand the caskets, noble prince : 
If you choose that wherein I am contain"d, 
Straight shall our nuptial-rites be solemniz'd ; 
But if you fail, without more speech, my Lord, 
You must be gone from hence immediately. 

J.r. I am enjoin'd by oath to observe three things: 
First, never to unfold to any one 
Which casket 'twas I chose ; next, if I fail 
Of the right casket, never in my life 
To w^oo a maid in way of marriage ; lastly, 
If I do fail in fortune of my choice. 
Immediately to leave you, and be gone. 

Por. To these injunctions every one doth swear, 
That comes to hazard for my worthless self. 

At. And so have I add rest' me : Fortune now 
To my heart's hope ! — Gold, silver, and base lead. 
Who chooseth me, must give and hazard all he hath : 
You shall look fairer, ere I give, or hazard. 
What says the golden chest? ha! let me see: — 
Who chooseth me, shall gain ichat many men desire. 
What many men desire. — That many may be meant 
By the fool multitude, that choose by show, 
Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach, 
Which pries not to the interior, but, like the martlet, 
Builds in the "u^eather, on the outward wall. 
Even in the force' and road of casualty. 
I will not choose what man}^ men desire, 
Because I will not jump with common spirits, 
And rank me with the barbarous multitudes. 
Why, then to thee, thou silver treasure-house ; 
Tell me once more what title thou dost bear: 
Who chooseth me, shall get as much as he deserves ; 
And well said too : For who shall go about 
To cozen fortune, and be honorable 
Without the stamp of merit? Let none presui'ne 
To wear an undeserved dignity. 
O, that estates, degrees, and offices, 
Were not derivxl corruptly ! and that clear honour 
Were purchas'd by the merit of the wearer ! 
How many then should cover, that stand bare? 
How many be commanded, that command? 
How much low peasantry would then be gleaned 
From the true seed of honour? and hov/ much honour 
Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times. 
To be new varnish VI ? Well, but to my choice: 
Who chooseth me, shall get as much as he deserves : 

^ i. e. Prepared me. ^ The power. 



1603-1625.] SHAKSPEARE. 123 

I will assume desert ; — Give me a key for this, 
And instantly unlock my fortunes here. 

For. Too long a pause for that which you find there. 
Ar. What's here "? the portrait of a blinking idiot, 
Presenting me a schedule ? I will read it. 
How much unlike art thou to Portia ! 
How much unlike my hopes, and my deservings ! 
Who chooseth me, shall have as much as he deserves : 
Did I deserve no more than a foofs head"? 
Is that my prize? are my deserts no better ? 

For. To offend, and judge, are distinct offices. 
And of opposed natures. 
Ar. What is here? 

The fire seven times tried this ; 
Seven times tried that judgment is, 
That did never choose amiss : 
Some there be, that shadows kiss : 
Such have bid a shadow's bliss : 
There befools alive, IwisK 
Silver d o'er ; and so ivas this. 
Still more fool I shall appear 
By the time I linger here : 
With one fool's head I came to woo, 
But I go away with two. — 
Sweet, adie^^ ! I'll keep my oath, 
Patiently to bear my wroth.^ 

Enter Bassanio. 
Bass. — So may the outward shows be least themselves^ 
The world is still deceiv'd with ornament. 
In law what plea so tainted and corrupt. 
But, being seasonal with a gracious voice. 
Obscures the show of evil ? Iii religion. 
What dangerous error, but some sober brow 
Will bless it, and approve it with a text, 
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament ? 
There is no vice so simple, but assumes 
Some mark of virtue on its outward parts. 
How many cowards, whose hearts are ah as false 
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins 
The beards of Hercules, and frowning Mars; 
Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk ? 
And these assume but valour's countenance 
To render them redoubted. Look on beauty, 
And you shall see 'tis purchas'd by the weight ; 
Which therein works a miracle in nature. 
Making them lightest that wear most of it: 
So are those crisped^ snaky golden locks, 
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind, 
Upon supposed fairness, often known 

' That is, I know. 2 i_ g^ jyjy misfortune. ^ i. e. Curled. 



124 SHAKSPEARE. [jAMES I. 

To be the dowry of a second head, 

The skull that bred them in the sepulchre. 

Thus ornament is but the guiled' shore 

To a most dangerous sea ; the beauteous scarf 

Veiling an Indian beauty ; in a word, 

The seemmg truth which cunning times put on 

To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold, 

Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee : 

Nor none of tbee, thou pale and common drudge 

'TM-een man and man : but thou, thou meagre lead, 

Which rather threat'nest, than dost promise aught. 

Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence. 

And here choose I : Joy be the consequence ! 

Opening the leaden ca,skel. 

What find I here ? 

Fair Portia's counterfeit 1^ 

Here's the scroll, 

The continent and smnmary of my fortune. 
You that choose not hy the view, 



Chance as fair, a7id choose as tr 



Since this fortune falls to you, 
Be content and seek no new. 
If you be icell pleas' d ivith this. 
And hold your fortune for your bliss, 
Turn you where your lady is, 
And claim her with a loving kiss. 
For. You see me, lord Bassanio, where I stand. 
Such as I am : thotigh, for myself alone, 
I \'i"0uld not be ambitious in my wish. 
To wish myself much better : yet, for you, 
I vrould be trebled twent}^ times myself; 
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand tunes 
More rich: 

That only to stand high on j'our account, 
I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends. 
Exceed account : but the full sum of me 
Is sum of something : which, to term in gross, 
Is an unlesson'd gir], unschoofd, unpractised: 
Happy in this, she is not yet so old 
But she may learn ; and happier than this, 
She is not bred so dull but she can learn ; 
Happiest of all, is, that her gentle spirit 
Commits itself to yours to be directed. 
As from her lord, her governor, her king. 
Myself, and what is mine, to you, and yom-s 
Is now converted : but now I Vv^as the lord 
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants, 
Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now. 
This house, these servants, and this same myself, 

^ i. e. The treacherous shore. 

- Counteifeit here means a likeness, a resemblance. 



1603-1625.] siiAKSPEARE. 125 

Are yours, my lord ; I give them with this ring ; 
Which when you part from, lose, or give away, 
Let it presage tlie ruin of your love, 
And be my vantage to exclaim on you. 



THE SEVEN AGES. 

The banished Duke, with Jaques and other lords, are in the forest of 
Arden, sitting at their plain repast. Orlando, who had been wandering in 
the forest in quest of food for an old servant, Adam, who could "go no 
further," suddenly comes upon the party, and with his sword drawn, ex- 
claims, 

Orlando. Forbear. I say ; 

He dies that touches any of this fruit, 
Till I and my affairs are answered. 

Jaques. An you will not 
Be answered with reason, I must die. 

Duke Sen. What would you have ? Your gentleness shall force. 
More than your force move us to gentleness. 

Orla. I almost die for food, and let me have it. 

Duke Sen. Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table. 

Orla. Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you j 
I thought that all things had been savage here ; 
And therefore put I on the countenance 
Of stern commandment. But wdiate"er you are, 
That in this desert inaccessible, 
Under the shade of melancholy boughs, 
Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time ; 
If ever you have look"d on better days; 
If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church; 
If ever sat at any good man's feast ; 
If ever from your eyelids wip'd a tear, 
And know what 'tis to pity, and be pitied : 
Let gentleness ray strong enforcement be : 
In the which hope, I blush, and hide my sword. 

Duke Sen. True is it that we haA'e seen better days ; 
And have with holy bell been knolVd to church ; 
And sat at good mens feasts ; and wip"d our eyes 
Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd : 
And therefore sit you down in gentleness, 
And take upon command i what help we have, 
That to your wanting may be ministered. 

Orla. Then but forbear your food a little while, 
Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn, 
And give it food. There is an old poor man. 
Who after me hath many a w^eary step 
Limpxl in pure love ; "till he be first suffic"d, — 
Oppress'd v/ith two weak evils, age and hunger, — 
I will not touch a bit. 

'■ i. e. at your own command. 



126 SHAKSPEARE. [jAMES I. 

Duke Sen. Go find him out, 
And we will nothing waste till your return. 

Orla. I thank ye : and be bless'd for your good comfort ! — Exit. 

Duke Sen. Thou seest, we are not all alone unhappy : 
This wide and universal theatre 
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene 
Wherein we play in. 

Jaq. All the world's a stage, 
And all the men and women merely players : 
They have their exits and their entrances; 
And one man in his time plays many parts, 
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, 
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms: 
And then, the whining school-boy with his satchel, 
And shining morning-face, creeping like snail 
Unwillingly to school: And then the lover; 
Sighing like furnace, with woeful ballad 
Made to his mistress' eyebrow : Then, a soldier ; 
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, 
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, 
Seeking the bubble reputation 

Even in the cannon's mouth: And then, the justice; 
In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd. 
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, 
Full of wise saws and modern^ instances, 
And so he plays his part: The sixth age shifts 
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon: 
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side : 
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide 
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, 
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes 
And whistles in his sound: Last scene of all. 
That ends this strange eventful history, 
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion : 
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing. 

As You Like It, 



Othello's defence. 

Othello, the Moor, being accused of having gained the affections of the 
fair Desderaona "by spells and medicines bought of mountebanks," thus 
addresses the senate in his own defence. 

Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, 
My very noble and approv'd good masters ; 
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter, 
It is most true ; true, I have married her ; 
The very head and front of my offending 
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech 
And little blest with the set phrase of peace ; 

* i. e. trite, common instances. 



1603-1625.] SHAKSPEARE. 127 

For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith, 

Till now, some nine moons wasted, they have us'd 

Their dearest action in the tented field ; 

And little of this great world can I speak, 

More than pertains to feats of broil and battle ; 

And therefore little shall I grace my cause 

In speaking for myself Yet, by your gracious patience, 

I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver 

Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms, 

What conjuration, and what mighty magic 

(For such proceeding I am charg'd withal) 

I won his daughter with. 

Her father lov'd me, oft invited me; 
Still question'd me the story of my life. 
From year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes, 
That I have past. 

I ran it through, ev'n from my boyish days, 
To the very moment that he bade me tell it : 
Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances. 
Of moving accidents by flood and field ; 
Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' th' imminent deadly breach ; 
Of being taken by the insolent foe, 
And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence, 
And portance in my travel's history. 
Wherein of antres A^ast, and deserts idle, 
Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven, 
It was ray hint to speak, such was the process; 
And of the cannibals that each other eat. 
The anthropophagi, and men whose heads 
Do grow beneath their shoulders. These things to hear 
Would Desdemona seriously incline; 
But still the house affairs would draw her thence ; 
Which ever as she could with haste despatch, 
She'd come again, and with a greedy ear 
Devour up my discourse : which I observing. 
Took once a pliant hour, and found good means 
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart. 
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate. 
Whereof by parcels she had something heard, 
But not intentively. I did consent. 
And often did beguile her of her tears, 
When I did speak of some distressful stroke 
That my youth suffered. My story being done. 
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs; 
She swore — in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange, 

•'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful • 

She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd 

That heaven had made her such a man: — she thank'd me, 

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, 

I should but teach him how to tell my story; 

And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake ; 

She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd, 

And I lov'd her that she did pity them. 

This only i>5 the witchcraft I have us'd, Othello. 



128 SHAKSPEARE. [jAMES I, 



CLARENCE S DREAM. 

The Duke of Clarence, having been imprisoned in the Tower, for the 
purpose of being murdered, by his brother Richard IIL, thus relates to Sir 
Robert Brakenbury, the lieutenant of the Tower, his dream of the pre- 
ceding night. 

Brakenbury. Why looks your grace so heavily to day? 
Clarence. 0, 1 have past a miserable night, 

So full o/ fearful dreams, of ugly sights, 

That as I am a christian faithful man,i 

I would not spend another such a night. 

Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days; 

So full of dismal terror was the time. 

Brak. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you tell me. 
Clar. Methought, that I had broken from the Tower, 

And "was embark'd to cross to Burgundy ; 

And, in my company, my brother Gloster : 

Who from my cabin tempted me to w^alk 

Upon the hatches; thence we look"d toward England, 

And cited up a thousand heavy times. 

During the wars of York and Lancaster, 

That had befalFn us. As Ave pac'd along 

Upon the giddy footing of the hatches, 

Methought, that Glos'ter stumbled: and, in falling, 

Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard 

Into the tumbling billows of the main. 

O Lord ! methought, what pain it w- as to drown ! 

What dreadful noise of water in mine ears ! 

What sights of ugly death, within mine eyes! 

Methought I saw a thousand fearful wn-ecks ; 

A thousand men, that fishes gnaw"d upon; 

Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, 

Inestimable stones, unvalued^ jewels, 

All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea. 

Some lay in dead men's skulls; and, in those holes, 

Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept 

(As 'twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems, 

That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep. 

And mock'd the dead bones that lay scattered by. 
Brak. Had you such leisure in the time of death, 

To gaze upon these secrets of the deep ? 

Clar. Methought I had ; and often did I strive 

To yield the ghost; but still the envious flood 

Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth * 

To seek the empty, vast, and wand'ring air; 

But smother'd it within my panting bulk, 

Which almost burst to belch it in the sea. 

Brak. Awak'd you not with this sore agony? 

1 That is, not an infidel. * Invaluable. 



1603-1625.] SHAKSPEARE. 129 

Clar. 0, no, my dream was lengthened after life; 
0, then began the tempest to my soul! 
I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood, 
With that grim ferryman which poets write of, 
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night. 
The first that there did greet my stranger soul, 
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick; 
Who cry'd aloud, What scourge for perjury 
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence ? 
And so he vanished : Then came wand'ring by 
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair 
Dabbled in blood; and he shriek'd out aloud, 
Clarence is come — false, fleeting,'^ perjured Clarence — 
That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury • 
Seize on him^ furies, take him to your torments ! 
With that, methought a legion of foul fiends 
Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears 
Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise, 
I trembling wak'd, and, for a season after, 
Could not believe but that I was in hell : 
Such terrible impression made my dream. 

Brak. No marvel, lord, though it affrighted you; 
I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it. 

Clar. 0, Brakenbury, I have done these things, — 
That now give evidence against vay soul, 
For Edward's sake, and see how he requites me ! 
O, God ! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee, 
But thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds, 
Yet execute thy wrath on me alone : 
0, spare my gxiiltless wife, and my poor children ! 

Richard Third. 



FALL OF CARDINAL WOLSEY. 

Cardinal Wolsey, after his fall from the favor of Henry VIII., thus so- 
liloquises, and confers with his servant Cromwell. 

Wolsey. Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness ! 
This is the state of man ; to-day he puts forth 
The tender leaves of hope ; to-morrow blossoms, 
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him : 
The third day, comes a frost, a killing frost ; 
And, — when he thinks, good easy man, full surely 
His greatness is a ripening, — nips his root, 
And then he falls, as I do, I have ventur'd, 
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, 
This many summers in a sea of glory; 
But far beyond my depth : my high-blown pride 
At length broke under me ; and now has left me, 
Weary, and old with service, to the mercy 



Fleeting," the same as changing sides. 



130 SHAKSPEARE. [jAMES I. 

Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me. 
V'^ain pomp, and glory of this world, I hate ye; 
I feel my heart new open"d : 0, how wretched 
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours ! 
There is, betwixt that smile he would aspire to, 
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, 
More pangs and fears than wars or women have ; 
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, 
Never to hope again. — 

E^iter Ceomwell, amazedly. 

Why, how now, Cromwell? 

Crom. I have no power to speak, sir. 

Wol. What, araaz'd 

At my misfortunes ? can thy spirit wonder, 
A great man should decline ? Nay, an you weep, 
I am fallen indeed. 

Crom. How does vour grace? 

Wol " Why, well; 

Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell. 
I know myself now ; and I feel within me 
A peace above all earthly dignities, 
A still and quiet conscience. The king has cur"d me, 
I humbly thank his grace ; and from these shoulders, 
These ruin"d pillars, out of pity, taken 
A load would sink a navy, too much honor : 
'tis a burden, Cromwell, "tis a bm-den, 
Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven. 

Crom. I am glad, your grace has made that right use of it. 

Wol. I hope I have ; I am able now, methinks, 
(Out of a fortitude of soul I fee],) 
To endure more miseries, and greater far. 
Than my "weak-liearted enemies dare offer. 
What news abroad ? 

Crom. The heaviest, and the Vv-orst, 

Is your displeasure with the king. 

Wol God bless him ! 

Crom. The next is, that Sir Thomas More is chosen 
Lord Chancellor in your place. 

Wol That's somewhat sudden: 

But he"s a learned man. May he continue 
Long in his highness' favor, and do justice 
For truth's sake, and his conscience ; that his bones. 
When he has run his course, and sleeps in blessings, 
May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on 'em ! ' 
What more ? 

Crom. That Cranmer is return'd with welcome, 
Instaird lord archbishop of Canterbury. 

Wol That's news indeed. 

Crom. Last, that the Lady Anne. 

1 The Chancellor is the general guardian of orphans. 



1603-1625.] SHAKSPEARE. 131 

Whom the king hath in secresy long married, 
This day was view"d in open, as his queen. 
Going to chapel : and the voice is now 
Only about her coronation. 

Wol. There was the weight that pulTd me down, Cromwell. 
The king has gone beyond me, all my glories 
Li that one woman I have lost forever : 
No sun shall ever usher forth mine honors, 
Or gild again the noble troops that waited 
Upon my smiles. Go, get thee from me, Cromwell : 
I am a poor fallen man, unworthy now 
To be thy lord and master : Seek the king ; 
That sun I pray may never set ! I have told hun 
What, and how true thou art ; he will advance thee ; 
Some little memory of me will stir him, 
(I know his noble nature,) not to let 
Thy hopeful service perish too : Good Cromwell, 
Neglect liim not, inake use now, and provide 
For thine own future safety. 

Crom. O my lord. 

Must I then leave you? 3Iast I needs forego 
So good, so noble, and so true a master ? 
Bear witness, all that have not hearts of iron, 
With what a sorrow Cromwell leaves his lord — 
The king shall have my service : but my prayers 
Forever, and forever shall be yours. 

Wol. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear 
In all my miseries ; but thou hast forc"d me 
Out of thy honest truth to play the woman. 
Let"s dry om- eyes; and thus far hear me, Cromwell; 
And, — when I am forgotten, as I shall be ; 
And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention 
Of me more must be heard of, — say, I taught thee, 
Say, Wolsey, — that once trod the ways of glory, 
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honor, — 
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in ; 
A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it. 
Mark but my fall, and that that ruin"d me. 
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition; 
By that sin fell the angels ; how can man then, 
The image of his Maker, hope to win by"t ? 
Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee; 
Corruption wins not more than honesty. 
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, 
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not : 
Let all the ends thou aim"st at be thy country's, 
Thy God"s, and truth's; then if thou falfst, Cromwell, 
Thou falfst a blessed martyr. Serve the king ; 

And, Prythee, lead me in : 

There take an inventory of all I have. 

To the last penny; 'tis the king's; my robe, 

And ray integrity to heaven, is all 



132 SHA.KSPEARE. [jAMES I. 

I dare now call mine own, Cromwell, Cromwell, 
Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal 
I serv'd my king, he would not in mine age 
Have left me naked to mine enemies. i 

Crom. Good sir, have patience. 

Wol. So I have. Farewell 

The hopes of court! my hopes in heaven do dwell. 

Henry VIII. 

QUEEN MAB. 

O then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. 

She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes 

In shape no bigger than an agate-stone 

On the fore-finger of an alderman, 

Drawn with a team of little atomies, 

Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep : 

Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners' legs ; 

The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers ; 

The traces, of the smallest spider's web ; 

The collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams ; 

Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film ; 

Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat, 

Not half so big as a round little worm, 

Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid : 

Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut. 

Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub, 

Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers. 

And in this state she gallops night by night. 

Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love ; 

On courtiers' knees, that dream on courtsies straight ; 

O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees ; 

O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream ; 

Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, 

Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are. 

Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, 

And then dreams he of smelling out a suit : 

And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail, 

Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep, 

Then dreams he of another benefice ! 

Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck. 

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, 

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades. 

Of healths five fathom deep ; and then anon 

Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes ; 

And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two, 

And sleeps again. This is that very Mab 

That plats the manes of horses in the night ; 

And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs. 

Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes. 

Romeo and Juliet. 

^ This sentence was really uttered by Wolsey. 



1603-1625.] SHAKSPEARE. 133 



LIFE AND DEATH WEIGHED, 

To be, or not to be, that is the question : — 

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer 

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, 

And, by opposing, end them ? To die — to sleep — 

No more ; and by a sleep to say we end 

The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks 

That flesh is heir to, — 'tis a consummation 

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die ; — to sleep ; — 

To sleep ! — perchance to dream ! — ay, there's the rub ; 

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, 

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 

Must give us pause: — There's the respect 

That makes calamity of so long life : 

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time. 

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, 

The insolence of office, and the spurns 

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes. 

When he himself might his quietus make 

With a bare bodkin"? Who would fardels bear, 

To grunt and sweat under a weary life. 

But that the dread of something after death, — 

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn 

No traveller returns,— puzzles the will. 

And makes us rather bear those ills we have. 

Than fly to others that we know not of? 

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ; 

And thus the native hue of resolution 

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought. 

And enterprises of great pith and moment. 

With this regard, their currents turn awry. 

And lose the name of action. Hamlet, 



MERCY. 

The quality of mercy is not strain'd ; 

It droppetli as the gentle rain from heaven 

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed; 

It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes. 

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes 

The throned monarch better than his crown : 

His sceptre shows the force of temporal pow'r, 

The attribute to awe and majesty. 

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings. 

But mercy is above the sceptered sway ; 

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings; 

It is an attribute to God himself; 

And earthly power doth then show likest God's, 

When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, 



134 RALEIGH. [jAMES I. 

Though justice be thy plea, consider this — ■ 

That, in the course of justice, none of us 

Should see salvation : we do pray for mercy : 

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 

The deeds of mercy. Merchant of Venice. 



THE USES OF ADVERSITY. 

]Vo"w, my co-mates and brothers in exile. 

Hath not old custom made this life more sweet 

Than that of painted pomp 1 Are not these woods 

More free from peril than the envious court '? 

Here feel we but the penalty of Adam, 

The seasons' difference ; as, the icy fang 

And churlish chiding of the winter's wind ; 

Which, when it bites and blows upon my body, 

Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say, 

"This is no flattery;" these are counsellors 

That feelingly persuade me what I am. 

Sweet are the uses of adversity. 

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous. 

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head: 

And this our life, exempt from public haunt. 

Finds tongues in trees, iDOoks in the running brooks, 

Sermons in stones, and good in every thing. 

I would not change it! 

Amiens. Happy is your grace. 

That can translate the stubbornness of fortune 
Into so quiet and so sweet a style ! As You Like It. 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH, 1552—1618. 

Sir Walter Ralei&h, one of the most remarkable men England has 
produced, was born in the parish of Budley in Devonshire, in 1552. About 
the year 1568 he entered Oxford, where he continued but a short time, for 
in the following year he was in France, where Hooker says " he spent good 
part of his youth in wars and martial exercises." He escaped the massacre of 
St. Bartholomew (August, 1572), by taking refuge with Sir Philip Sidney in 
the hoii^e of the English ambassador. In 1579 he accompanied his half bro- 
ther, Sir Henry Gilbert in a voyage to Newfoundland: the expedition proved 
unfortunate, but it doubtless had an influence in leading him to engage in 
subsequent expeditions which have made his name famous. He soon ingra- 
tiated himself with the queen, who in 1584 granted him a patent to discover 
" such remote heathen and barbarous lands, not actually possessed by any 
Christian prince, as to him might seem good." Two ships were soon after 
fitted out by Raleigh, which arrived on the coast of Carolina in July. They 
were commanded by Philip Amidas and Arthur Barlow, who took posses- 
sion of the country in the name of the Virgin Queen, and called it Virginia. 



1603-1625.] RALEIGH. 135 

In 1585 he projected a second voyage, and seven vessels were sent out, 
which arrived at Roanoke, an island in Albemarle Sound. But the colonists 
failed in their object, and in July 27, 1586, returned to England, carrying 
with them, for the first tim.e, that nauseous weed, tobacco, instead of dia- 
monds and gold. In 1594 he matured the plan of his first voyage to 
Guiana — a voyage memorable in his history, as it was eventually the cause 
of his destruction. This expedition he attended in person, and returned to 
England in the summer of 1595, when he published a work, entitled "Dis- 
covery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana." 

But his fortune fell with the death of the Queen. James I. was early 
prejudiced against him, for he was scarcely seated upon the throne when 
Raleigh was accused of treason, of conspiring to dethrone the king, of ex- 
citing sedition, and of endeavoring to establish popery by the aid of foreign 
powers. After a trial, perhaps the most disgraceful in the annals of English 
jurisprudence, he was condemned to lose his head. He was reprieved, 
however, by the king, but his estates were taken from him, and he was 
sent to the tower for twelve years — a period the best employed of any in 
his life, as he there composed the great work on which his literary fame 
chiefly rests — "The History of the World." In the year 1615 he was 
liberated by the king, who wanted him to plan and conduct an expedition to 
Guiana, and in 1617 he sailed with twelve vessels. But the expedition 
failed, and Sir Walter's death was determined on. Finding no present 
grounds against him, his enemies proceeded on the old sentence, and he was 
beheaded on the 29th of October, 1618, dying with the same dauntless reso- 
lution he had displayed through his life. 

Sir Walter Raleigh is no less distinguished as a literary character, than 
as an experienced navigator, and a valorous knight. For extent of know- 
ledge and variety of talent, he was undoubtedly the first man of his age. 
The work on which his fame chiefly rests is his History of the World, which 
begins with the Creation, and ends with the downfall of the Macedonian 
Empire, 168 B. C Of this work Hume remarks, " it is the best model of 
that ancient style, which some writers would affect to revive at present;" 
and Professor Tytler, the Scotch historian, commends it as "rigorous, 
purely English, and possessing an antique richness of ornament, similar to 
what pleases us when we see some ancient priory or stately manor-house, 
and compare it with our more modern mansions. It is laborious without 
being heavy, learned without being dry. Its narrative is clear and spirited, 
and the matter collected from the most authentic sources." The following 
extracts from this work, will give a good idea of the style in which it is 
written : 



XERXES PASSING THE HELLESPONT. 

He ^ave order, that a bridge upon boats should be made 
over the Hellespont between Abidos and Sestos, the sea there 

1 Battle of Pvdna. 



136 RALEIGH. [jAMES I. 

having a mile of breadth, wanting an eighth part; which, after 
the finishing, was by a tempest torn asunder and dissevered: 
whereupon Xerxes, being more enraged than discouraged, com- 
manded those to be slain that were masters of the work, and 
caused six hundred threescore and fourteen gallies, to be coupled 
together, thereon to frame a new bridge; which, by the art and 
industry of the Phcenicians, was so well anchored to resist both 
winds blowing into and from the Euxine sea, as the same be- 
ing well boarded and railed, the whole army of seventeen 
hundred thousand foot, and fourscore thousand horse, with all 
the mules and carriages, passed over it into Europe in seven 
days and seven nights, without intermission. This transporta- 
tion of armies did Csesar afterwards use; and Caligula, that 
mad emperor, in imitation of Xerxes' bridge, did build the like. 
The bridge finished, and the army brought near to the sea- 
side, Xerxes took a view of all his troops, assembled in the 
plains of Midos, being carried up, and seated on a place over- 
topping the land round about it, and the sea adjoining: and 
after he had gloried in his own happiness, to behold and com- 
mand so many nations, and so powerful an army and fleet, he 
suddenly (notwithstanding) burst out into tears, moved with 
this contemplation, that in one hundred years there should not 
any one survive of that marvellous multitude. 

THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYL^. 

After such time as Xerxes had transported the army over 
the Hellespont, and landed in Thrace (leaving the description 
of his passage alongst that coast, and how the river of Lissus 
was drunk dry by his multitudes, and the lake near to Pissyrus 
by his cattle, with other accidents in his marches towards 
Greece), I will speak of the encounters he had, and the shame- 
ful and incredible overthrows which he received. As first at 
Thermopylae, a narrow passage of half an acre of ground, lying 
between the mountains which divide Thessaly from Greece, 
where sometime the Phocians had raised a wall with gates, 
which was then for the most part ruined. At this entrance, 
Leonidas, one of the kings of Sparta, with 300 Lacedaemo- 
nians, assisted with 1000 Tegetae and Mantinceans, and 1000 
Arcadians, and other Peloponnesians, to the number of 3100 
in the whole; besides 100 Phocians, 400 Thebans, 700 Thes- 
pians, and all the forces (such as they were) of the bordering 
Locrians, defended the passage two whole days together against 
that huge army of the Persians. The valour of the Greeks 






1603-1625.] RALEIGH. 137 

appeared so excellent in this defence, that, in the first day's 
fight, Xerxes is said to have three times leaped out of his 
throne, fearing the destruction of his army by one handful of 
those men whom not long before he had utterly despised: and 
when the second day's attempt upon the Greeks had proved 
vain, he was altogether ignorant how to proceed further, and so 
might have continued, had not a runagate Grecian taught him a 
secret way, by which part of his army might ascend the ledge 
of mountains, and set upon the backs of those who kept the 
straits. But when the most valiant of the Persian army had 
almost inclosed the small forces of the Greeks, then did Leo- 
nidas, king of the Lacedaemonians, with his 300, and 700 
Thespians, which were all that abode by him, refuse to quit 
the place which they had undertaken to make good, and with 
admirable courage, not only resist that world of men which 
charge them on all sides, but, issuing out of their strength, 
made so great a slaughter of their enemies, that they might well 
be called vanquishers, though all of them were slain upon the 
place. Xerxes, having lost in this last fight, together with 
20,000 other soldiers and captains, two of his own brethren, 
began to doubt what inconvenience might befall him by the vir- 
tue of such as had not been present at these battles, with whom 
he knew that he shordy was to deal. Especially of the Spar- 
tans he stood in great fear, whose manhood had appeared 
singular in this trial, which caused him very carefully to in- 
quire what numbers they could bring into the field. It is 
reported of Dieneces, the Spartan, that when one thought to 
have terrified him by saying that the flight of the Persian 
arrows was so thick as would hide the sun, he answered 
thus — ' It is very good news, for then shall we fight in the cool 
shade.' 

THE POWER or DEATH. 

Men neglect the advice of God, while they enjoy life, or 
hope of it; but they follow the counsel of Death, upon his first 
approach. It is he that puts into men all the wisdom of the 
world, without speaking a word; which God, with all the 
words of his law, promises, or threats, doth infuse. Death, 
which hateth and destroyeth man, is believed; God, w^hich 
hath made him, and loves him, is always deferred. "I have 
considered," saith Solomon, " all the works that are under the 
sun, and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit:" but who 
believes it till Death tells it us? It was Death, which opening 



138 RALEIGH. [jAMES I. 

the conscience of Charles the Fifth, made him enjoin his son 
Philip to restore Navarre ; and king Francis the First of 
France, to command that justice should be done upon the mur- 
derers of the Protestants in Merindol and Cabrieres, which till 
then he neglected. It is therefore Death alone that can sud- 
denly make man to know himself. He tells the proud and 
insolent, that they are but abjects, and humbles them at the 
instant; makes them cry, complain, and repent; yea, even to 
hate their forepassed happiness. He takes the account of the 
rich, and proves him a beggar; a naked beggar, which hath 
interest in nothing, but in the gravel that fills his mouth. He 
holds a glass before the eyes of the most beautiful, and makes 
them see therein their deformity and rottenness ; and they ac- 
knowledge it. 

O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could ad- 
vise, thou hast persuaded; what none have dared, thou hast 
done ; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast 
cast out of the world and despised: thou hast drawn together 
all the far stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambi- 
tion of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow 
words, Hicjacet. 

Besides his great work, Sir Walter wrote a large number of tracts and 
treatises upon various subjects : such as " Maxims of State, a Compendium 
of Government :" "The Cabinet Council, containing the chief arts of 
empire, &c. ;" on the "Invention of Ships, Anchors, Compass, &c.;" 
"Journal of a Second Voyage to Guiana;" a "Treatise on Mines and 
Minerals;" and between thirty and forty others on diverse subjects. Such 
were the literary labors of this extraordinary man; and most truthfully does 
Headley remark, that as "an historian, a navigator, a soldier, and a politi- 
cian, he ranks with the first characters of his age and country ; and his life 
furnishes the most unequivocal proof that, amid the distractions of an active 
and adventurous life, leisure may always be found for the cultivation of 
letters." 

But Sir Walter Raleigh did not confine himself to prose; he courted the 
Muses, and he is a votary of whom the Muses cannot but be proud. The 
poetry he has left is but httle, but it is sufficient to discover that, had he 
made it a serious pursuit, he would have equally excelled in that, as he has 
done in other departments of learning. Spenser, who had a high opinion of 
his poetical abilities, styles him " the summer's nightingale." The follow- 
ing are two of his pieces: 

THE nymph's reply TO THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD.' 

If all the world and love were young, 
And truth in every shepherd's tongue, 

^ See the invitation of the Shepherd by Marlow, p. 80. 



1603- J 625.] RALEIGH. 139 

These pretty pleasures might me move 
To Hve with thee, and be thy love. 

Time drives the flocks from field to fold, 
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold: 
And Philomel becometh dumb, 
The rest complain of cares to come. 

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields 
To wayward winter reckoning yields : 
A honey tongue — a heart of gall, 
Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall. 

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, 
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies, 
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten, 
In folly ripe, in reason rotten. 

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds, 
Thy coral clasps and amber studs : 
All these in me no means can move 
To come to thee and be thy love. 

But could youth last, and love still breed, 
Had joys no date, nor age no need. 
Then these delights my mind might move 
To live with thee and be thy love. 



THE SILENT LOVER. 

Passions are liken'd best to floods and streams, 
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb ; 
So v^^hen affection yields discourse, it seems 
The bottom is but shallow whence they come ; 
They that are rich in words must needs discover 
They are but poor in that which makes a lover. 

Wrong not, sweet mistress of my heart. 

The merit of true passion. 
With thinking that he feels no smart 

That sues for no compassion. 

Since if my plaints were not t' approve 

The conquest of thy beauty, 
It comes not from defect of love, 

But fear t' exceed my duty. 

For not knowing that I sue to serve 

A saint of such perfection, 
As all desire, but none deserve 

A place in her affection, 

I rather choose to want relief 

Thau venture the revealing; 
Where glory recommends the grief, 

Despair disdains the healing. 



140 RALEIGH. [jAMES I. 

Silence in love betrays more woe 

Than words, tho' ne'er so witty ; 
A beggar that is dumb, you know, 

May challenge double pity. 

Then wrong not, dearest to my heart, 

My love for secret passion ; 
He smarteth most who hides his smart, 

And sues for no compassion. 

The following most affectionate and touching letter, written by Raleigh 
to his wife, after his condemnation, cannot be omitted : 

You shall receive, my dear wife, my last words in these my 
last lines; my love 1 send you, that you may keep when I am 
dead, and my counsel, that you may remember it when I am 
no more. I would not with my will present you sorrows, dear 
Bess ; let them go to the grave with me, and be buried in the 
dust. And seeing that it is not the will of God that I shall see 
you any more, bear my destruction patiently, and with an heart 
like yourself. 

First I send you all the thanks which my heart can conceive, 
or my words express, for your many travels and cares for me ; 
which though they have not taken effect as you wished, yet 
my debt to you is not the less; but pay it I never shall in this 
world. 

Secondly, I beseech you, for the love you bare me living, 
that you do not hide yourself many days, but by your travels 
seek to help the miserable fortunes and the right of your poor 
child. Your mourning cannot avail me that am but dust. 

Thirdly, you shall understand, that my lands were conveyed 
bona fide to my child; the writings were drawn at midsummer 
was twelve months, as divers can witness ; and I trust my 
blood will quench their malice who desired my slaughter, that 
they will not seek also to kill you and yours with extreme 
poverty. To what friend to direct you I know not, for all 
mine have left me in the true time of trial. Most sorry am I, 
that, being thus surprised by death, I can leave you no better 
estate ; God hath prevented all my determinations, — that great 
God which worketh all in all ; and if you can live free from 
want, care for no more, for the rest is but a vanity : love God, 
and begin betimes — in him you shall find true, everlasting, and 
endless comfort ; when you have travelled and wearied your- 
self with all sorts of worldly cogitations, you shall sit down by 
sorrow in the end. Teach your son also to serve and fear God 
whilst he is young, that the fear of God may grow up in him ; 



1603-1625.] DANIEL. 141 

then will God be an husband to you, and a father to him — an 
husband and a father that can never be taken from you. 

Baylie oweth me a thousand pounds, and Aryan six hun- 
dred ; in Jernesey also I have much owing me. Dear wife, I 
beseech you, for my soul's sake, pay all poor men. "When I 
am dead, no doubt you shall be much sought unto, for the world 
thinks I was very rich : have a care to the fair pretences of 
men, for no greater misery can befall you in this life, than to 
become a prey unto the world, and after to be despised. I 
speak (God knows) not to dissuade you from marriage, for it 
will be best for you, both in respect of God and the world. As 
for me, I am no more yours, nor you mine; death hath cut us 
asunder, and God hath divided me from the world, and you 
from me. Remember your poor child for his father's sake, 
who loved you in his happiest estate. I sued for my life, but 
God knows it was for you and yours that I desired it : for 
know it, my dear wife, your child is the child of a true man, 
who in his own respect despiseth death and his misshapen and 
ugly forms. I cannot write much ; God knows how hardly I 
steal this time when all sleep ; and it is also time for me to 
separate my thoughts from the world. Beg my dead body, 
which living was denied you, and either lay it in Sherbourne, or 
Exeter church by my father and mother. I can say no more ; 
time and death call me away. The everlasting God, power- 
ful, infinite, and inscrutable God Almighty, who is goodness 
itself, the true light and life, keep you and yours, and have 
mercy upon me, and forgive my persecutors and false accusers, 
and send us to meet in his glorious kingdom. My dear wife, 
farewell; bless my boy, pray for me, and let my true God hold 
you both in his arms. 

Yours that was, but now not mine own, 

Walter Raleigh. 



SAMUEL DANIEL, 1562—1619. 

We know but little of the personal history of Samuel Daniel. He was 
the son of a music master, and was born in Somersetshire in 1562. In 1579 
he entered Oxford, and left it at the end of three years without taking his 
degree. Towards the close of his life he retired to a farm in his native 
county, and died in 1619. 

His most elaborate work is " The History of the Civil Wars between the 
Houses of York and Lancaster," which is very dull and uninteresting, 
awakening little feeling of pathos or sympathy. But some of his minor 



142 DAXIEL. [jAMES I. 

poems certainly have a good deal of merit, and will rescue him from the 
harsh judgment of Ben Jonson. Headley, a very discriminating and candid 
critic, says, " We find both in his poetry and prose, such a legitimate and 
rational flow of language as approaches nearer the style of the eighteenth 
than the sixteenth century, and of which we may safely assert, that it will 
never become obsolete. He certainly was the Atticas of his day."* 



EQUANIMITY. 

From the Epistle to the Countess of Cumberland. 

He that of such a height hath built his mind, 
And rear'd the dwelling of his thoughts so strong, 
As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame 
Of his resolved pow'rs ; nor all the wind 
Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong 
His settled peace, or to disturb the same : 
What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may 
The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey "? 

And with how free an eye doth he look down 
Upon those lower regions of turmoil'? 
Where all the storms of passions mainly beat 
On flesh and blood : where honour, pow'r, renown, 
Are only gay afiiictions, golden toil; 
Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet, 
As frailty doth; and only great doth seem 
To little minds, who do it so esteem. 

He looks upon the mighti'st monarchs' wars 
But only as on stately robberies; 
Where evermore the fortune that prevails 
Must be the right: the ill-succeeding mars 
The fairest and the best-fac'd enterprise. 
Great pirate Pompey lesser pirates quails: 
Justice, he sees, (as if seduced) still 
Conspires with powT, whose cause must not be ill. 

He sees the face of right t' a.p]Dear as manifold 
As are the passions of uncertain man; 
Who puts it in all colours, all attires, 
To serve his ends, and make his courses hold. 
He sees, that let deceit work what it can, 
Plot and contrive base ways to high desires, 
That the all-guiding Providence doth yet 
All disappoint, and mocks this smoke of wit. 

And whilst distraught ambition compasses, 
And is encompass'd ; whilst as craft deceives. 
And is deceiv'd ; whilst man doth ransack man, 
And builds on blood, and rises by distress; 
And th' inheritance of desolation leaves 
To great-expecting hopes: he looks thereon 

See an article on Daniel, Retrospective Review, viii. 227. 



1603-1625.] DANIEL. 143 

As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye, 
And bears no venture in impiety. 

Thus, madam, fares that man, that hath prepar'd 
A rest for his desires ; and sees all things 
Beneath him; and hath learn'd this book of man, 
Full of the notes of frailty; and compar'd 
The best of glory with her sufferings : 
By whom, I see, you labour all you can 
To plant your heart ; and set your thoughts as near 
His glorious mansion as your pow'rs can bear. 



RICHARD THE SECOND, 

The morning before his murder in Pomfret Castle ; from the Thira Book of the 
Civil Wars. 

Whether the soul receives intelligence. 
By her near genius, of the body's end. 
And so imparts a sadness to the sense, 
Foregoing ruin whereto it doth tend; 
Or whether nature else hath conference 
With profound sleep, and so doth warning send, 
By prophetising dreams, what hurt is near. 
And gives the heavy careful heart to fear : 

However, so it is, the now sad king, 
Toss'd here and there his quiet to confound. 
Feels a strange weight of sorrows gathering 
Upon his trembling heart, and sees no ground; 
Feels sudden terror bring cold shivering ; 
Lists not to eat, still muses, sleeps unsound ; 
His senses droop, his steady eyes imquick, 
And much he ails, and yet he is not sick. 

The morning of that day which was his last, 

After a weary rest, rising to pain. 

Out at a little grate his eyes he cast 

Upon those bordering hills and open plain, 

Where others' liberty make him complain 

The more his own, and grieves his soul the more, 

Conferring captive crowns with freedom poor. 

O happy man, saith he, that lo I see. 
Grazing his cattle in those pleasant fields, 
If he but knew his good. How blessed he 
That feels not what affliction greatness yields ! 
Other than what he is he would not be, 
Nor change his state with him that sceptre wields. 
Thine, thine is that true life : that is to live, 
To rest secure, and not rise up to grieve. 

Thou sitt'st at home safe by thy quiet fire, 
And hear'st of other's harms, but fearest none : 
And there thou tell'st of kings, and who aspire. 
Who fall, who rise, who triumph, who do moan. 



144 FLETCHER. [jAMES I. 

Perhaps thou talk'st of me, and dost inquire 
Of my restraint, 'why here I lire alone, 
And pitiest this my miserable fall ; 
For pity must have part — envy not all. 

Thrice happy you that look as from the shore, 
And have no venture in the wreck you see ; 
No interest, no occasion to deplore 
Other men's travels, while yourselves sit free. 
How much doth your sweet rest make us the mare 
To see our misery and what we be : 
Whose blinded greatness, ever in turmoil, 
Still seekmg happy life, makes life a toil. 



GILES FLETCHER, 1588-1623. 

This truly pleasing Christian poet, the brother of Phineas Fletcher, who, 
in the words of old Antony Wood, " was equally beloved of the Muses and 
Graces," was born 1588. But very little is known of his life. He has, 
however, immortalized his name by that sweet poem entitled, "Christ's 
Victory and Triumph in Heaven and Earth over and after Death:" a poem 
w^hich displays great sweetness, united to harmony of numbers. Headley 
styles it "rich and picturesque," and Campbell' says, that, "inferior as he 
is to Spenser and Milton, he might be figured in his happiest moments, as 
a link of connexion in our poetry between those congenial spirits, for he 
reminds us of both, and evidently gave hints to the latter, in a poem on the 
same subject with Paradise Regained." 

REDEMPTION. 

When I remember Christ our burden bears, 

I look for glory, but find misery : 
I look for joy, but find a sea of tears; 

I look that we should live, and find Him die ; 
I look for angels" songs, and hear Him cry; 
Thus what I look, I cannot find so well ; 
Or, rather, ^vhat I find I cannot tell ; 
These banks so narrow are, these streams so highly swell. 

Christ sufiers, and in this his tears begin : 

Suffers for us — and our joys spring in this ; 
Suffers to death — here is his manhood seen; 
Suffers to rise — and here liis Godhead is ; 
For man, that could not by himself have ris". 
Out of the grave doth by the Godhead rise ; 
And lived, that could not die, in manhood dies. 
That we in both might live by that sweet sacrifice. 

^ Specimens, vol. ii. p, 306. 



1625-1649.] BACox. 145 

A tree was first the instrument ox'" strife, 

Where Eve to sin her soul did prostitute ; 
A tree is now the instrument of life. 

Though ill that trvmk and this fair body suit ; 
Ah! fatal tree, and yet blessed fruit! 
That death to Him, this life to us doth give ; 
Strange is the cure, when things past cure revive, 
And the Physician dies to make his patient live. 

Sweet Eden was the arbour of delight. 

Yet in his honey flowers our poison blew ; 
Sad Gethsemane, the bower of baleful night. 
Where Christ a health of poison for us drew, 
Yet all our honey in that poison grew : 
So we from sweetest flowers could suck our bane, 
And Christ froin bitter venom could again 
Extract life out of death, and pleasure out of pain. 

A man was first the author of our fall, 

A Man is now the author of our rise ; 
A garden was the place vv^e finished, 

A garden is the place He pays om* price : 
And the old serpent \vith a new device. 
Hath found a way himself for to beguile ; 
So he, that all men tangled in his wile, 
Is now by one Man caught, beguiled with his own guile. 

The dewy night had with her frosty shade 

Immantled all the world, and the stiff" ground 
Sparkled in ice: only the Lord that made 
All for Himself, Himself dissolved found, 
Sweet without heat, and bled without a M'ound : 
Of heaven and earth, a-nd God and man forlore. 
Thrice begging help of those whose sins he bore, 
And thrice denied of one, not to deny had swore. 



FRANCIS BACOX, 1561— 1G26. 

Fkaxcis Bacon, Viscount of St. Albans,^ and Lord High Chancellor ci 
England, was born in London, January 22, 156L fie was the son of Sir 
Tsicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of ihe great seal. He entered Cambridge at 
the early age of thirteen, and after spending four years there, where he was 
distinguished for his zealous application to study, and for the extraordinary 
maturity of his understanding, he went abroad and truvelled in France. But 
his father dying suddenly in 1579, and leaving but very little property, he 

' This is a town in Hertfordshire, famous for the two battles fought ia 
1455 and 1461 between the two rival houses of York and Lancaster, ft was 
anciently called Verulam, v.hcnce Bacon's subsequent title oi" honor, Baron 
Verulam, 

10 



146 BACON. [cHARLES I. 

hastily returned to England, and prosecuted the study of the law. He did 
not, however, neglect philosophy, for not far from this period he planned his 
great work, "The Instauration of the Sciences." In i590 he obtained the 
post of Counsel Extraordinary to the Queen, and three years afier he had a 
seat in Parliament from Middlesex. On the accession of James I. new 
honors awaited him. He was knighted in 1603. In 1G07 he married Alice, 
daughter of Benedict Barnham, Esq., alderman of London, by whom he had 
a considerable fortune, but no children. In subsequent years he obtained 
successively the offices of king's counsel, solicitor general, and attorney 
general. In 1617 the king presented the great seal to him; in 1618 he ob- 
tained the title of Lord High Chancellor of England, and about six months 
after the title of Baron of Verulam, which title gave place in the following 
year to that of Viscount of St. Albans. But a " nipping frost" was soon 
to kill these buds of honor : his fall and disgrace were at hand. In 1621 a 
parliamentary inquiry was instituted into his conduct as judge, which ended 
in his condemnation and disgrace, for having received numerous presents or 
bribes from parties whose cases were brought before him for decision. He 
fully confessed to the twenty-three articles of fraud, deceit, mal-practice and 
corruption which were laid to his charge ; and when waited on by a com- 
mittee of the House of Lords, appointed to inquire whether the confession 
was subscribed by himself, he answered, "It is my hand, my act, my 
heart: I beseech your lordships to be m.erciful to a broken reed." He was 
fined £40,000; sent prisoner to the Tower; and declared incapable of any 
office or employment in the state. After a short confinement he was 
released, and in 1625 obtained a full pardon. He died on the 9th of April, 
1626. 

The following are the most important works of this wonderful man : 
First, his " Essays or Councils, Civil and Moral." No book contains a 
greater fund of useful knowledge, or displays a more intimate acquaintance 
with human life and manners. "It may be read," says the great Scotch 
philosopher, Dugald Stewart, "from beginning to end in a few hours, and 
yet, after the twentieth perusal, one seldom fails to remark in it something 
overlooked before." 

2. " The Proncience and Advancement of Learning." This forms the 
first part of his great work afterwards published under the title oi Instauratio 
Scientiarum, '' The Reform in the Study of the Sciences." It is divided 
into two books : the first chiefly considers the objections to learning, and 
points out the many impediments to its progress : the second, the distribu- 
tion of knowledge, which he divides into three parts. " The parts of human 
learning," says he, " have reference to the three parts of man's understand- 
ing, which is the seat of learning: History to his Memory, Poesy to his 
Imagination, and Philosophy to his Reason." He gives also a full genea- 
logical table of knowledge, agreeably to this distribution. This is a work 
of vast learning. 

3. His celebrated treatise " Of the Wisdom and Learning of the An- 
cients." The object of this is to show that all the allegories and fables of 
antiquity have some concealed meaning, which had never been sufliciently 



1625-1649.] BACOX. 147 

explained. In the interpretation of these ancient mysteries he has displayed 
his remarkable sagacity and penetration, besides interspersing throughout 
various important observations on collateral subjects. 

4. The Novum Organum, or " New Instrument," or" Method of Study- 
ing the Sciences." This is the great work which has immortalized his 
name, and placed him at the head of the philosophic world, as the father 
OF THE INDUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY. The great Greek philosopher, Aristotle, 
called his philosophical work the " Organum." The " Method" which he 
adopted in scientific inquiries was rather to frame systems and lay down 
principles, and then to seek or make things conform thereto. But Lord 
Bacon, in his " New Method," insists upon the duty of carefully ascertain- 
ing facts in the first place, and then reasoning upon them towards conclu- 
sions. "Man," he says, "who is the servant and interpreter of nature, 
can act and understand no further than he has, either in operation or in con- 
templation, observed of the method and order of nature." And again, 
"Men have sought to make a world from their own conceptions, and to 
draw from their own minds all the materials which they employed : but 
if, instead of doing so, they had consulted experience and observation, 
they would have had facts and not opinions to reason about, and might 
ultimately have arrived at the knowledge of the laws which govern the 
material world." Thus Bacon established the method of Induction^ as the 
only true key to ihe temple of knowledge. "The power and compass," 
says Professor Playfair, " of a mind which could form such a plan before- 
hand, and trace not merely the outline, but many of the most minute rami- 
fications of sciences which did not yet exist, must be an object of admira- 
tion to all succeeding ages."^ 

Such is a brief and meagre view of the wonderful intellectual powers of 
this extraordinary man. He was not insensible of the value of his labors, 
for his last will contains this remarkable passage, " My name and memory 
I leave to foreign nations and to my own country after some time is passed 
over." But alas ! from his lamentable deficiency in high moral principle, 
and self-respect, the line of Pope, as terse as it is true, will ever be attached 
to his name, whenever and wherever mentioned, 

"The Avisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." 



DIVERSE OBJECTS OF MEN TO GAIN KNOWLEDGE. 

\_From tJie Advancement of Learning!] 

Men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge 
sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite ; 
sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delio-ht ; 

' This is called the Inductive system, from the Latin inductio, " a leading 
up," from particular facts to general conclusions. 

^ The best edition of Bacon is that by Basil Montagu, 17 vols. Svo, See 
also a very able article in the Edinburgh Review, by Macaulay, July, 1837. 
Also, two in the Retrospective, iii. 141, and iv. 280. 



148 BACOX. [cHARLES I. 

sometimes for ornament and reputation ; and sometimes to ena- 
ble them to victory of wit and contradiction ; and most times 
for lucre and profession ; and seldom sincerely to give a true 
account of their gift of reason to the benefit and use of man. 
As if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to 
rest a searching and restless spirit ; or a terrace for a wander- 
ing and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect ; 
or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon ; or a 
fort or commanding ground for strife and contention ; or a shop 
for profit or sale ; and not a rich store-house for the glory of 
the Creator, and the relief of man's estate. 



PRESERVATION OF KNOWLEDGE. 

As water, whether it be the dew of heaven or the springs of 
the earth, doth scatter and lose itself in the ground, except it 
be collected into some receptacle, where it may, by union, com- 
fort and sustain itself; and, for that cause, the industry of man 
hath framed and made spring-heads, conduits, cisterns, and 
pools ; which men have accustomed likewise to beautify and 
adorn with accomplishments of magnificence and state, as well 
as of use and necessity: so knowledge, whether it descend 
from divine inspiration or spring from human sense, would 
soon perish and vanish to oblivion, if it were not preserved in 
books, traditions, conferences, and places appointed, as univer- 
sities, colleges, and schools for the receipt and comforting the 
same. 

PLEASURE OF KNOWLEDGE. 

The pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning far sur- 
passeth all other in nature ; for shall the pleasures of the affec- 
tions so exceed the pleasures of the senses, as much as the 
obtaining of desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner ? 
and must not, of consequence, the pleasures of the intellect or 
understanding exceed the pleasures of the affections ? We see 
in all other pleasures there is a satiety, and after they be used, 
their verdure departeth ;' which showeth well they be but de- 
ceits of pleasure, and not pleasure, and that it was the novelty 
which pleased and not the quality; and therefore we see that 
voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious princes turn melan- 
choly; but of knowledge^ there is no satiety, but satisfaction 

1 "Heaven and earth may pass away, but my words will not pass away.'" 
2 A perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, 
Where no crude surfeit reigns. CoMUS. 



1625-1649.] BACON. 149 

and appetite are perpetually interchangeable ; and therefore 
appeareth to be good, in itself simply, without fallacy or acci- 
dent. 



THE USES OF KNOWLEDGE. 

Learning taketh away the wildness, and barbarism, and 
fierceness of men's minds : though a litde superficial learning 
doth rather work a contrary effect. It taketh away all levity, 
temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts 
and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on 
both sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the 
kind, and to accept of nothing but examined and tried. It 
taketh away vain admiration of any thing, which is the root of 
all weakness : for all things are admired, either because they 
are new, or because they are great. For novelty, no man 
wadeth in learning or contemplation thoroughly, but will find 
that printed in his heart, " / knoio nothing.''^ Neither can 
any man marvel at the play of puppets, that goeth behind the 
curtain, and adviseth well of the motion. And for magnitude, 
as Alexander the Great, after that he was used to great armies, 
and the great conquests of the spacious provinces in Asia, when 
he received letters out of Greece, of some fights and services 
there, which were commonly for a passage, or a fort, or some 
walled town at the most, he said, " It seemed to him, that he 
was advertised of the battle of the frogs and the mice, that the 
old tales went of." So certainly, if a man meditate upon the 
universal frame of nature, the earth with men upon it, the di- 
vineness of souls excepted, will not seem much other than an 
ant-hill, where some ants carry corn, and some carry their 
young, and some go empty, and all to and fro a little heap of 
dust. It taketh away or mitigateth fear of death, or adverse 
fortune ; which is one of the greatest impediments of virtue, 
and imperfections of manners. For if a man's mind be deeply 
seasoned with the consideration of the mortality and corrupti- 
ble nature of things, he will easily concur with Epictetus, who 
went forth one day, and saw a woman weeping for her pitcher 
of earth that was broken ; and went forth the next day, and 
saw a woman weeping for her son that was dead; and there- 
upon said, ''Yesterday I saw a fragile thing broken, to-day I 
have seen a mortal thing die.''^ And therefore Virgil did 
excellendy and profoundly couple the knowledge of causes, 
and the conquest of all fears together. 

It were too long to go over the particular remedies which 



150 BACON. [cHARLES T. 

learning doth minister to all the diseases of the mind, some- 
times purging the ill hnmours, sometimes opening the obstruc- 
tions, sometimes helping the digestion, sometimes increasing 
appetite, sometimes healing the wounds and exulcerations 
thereof, and the like; and therefore I will conclude with the 
chief reason of all, which is, that it disposeth the constitution 
of the mind not to be fixed or setded in the defects thereof, but 
still to be capable and susceptible of reformation. For the 
unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into himself, 
or to call himself to account ; nor the pleasure of that most 
pleasant life, which consists in our daily feeling ourselves to 
become better. The good parts he hath, he will learn to shew 
to the full, and use them dexterously, but not much to increase 
them: the faults he hath, he will learn how to hide and colour 
them, but not much to amend them: like an ill mower, that 
mows on still and never whets his scythe. Whereas with the 
learned man it fares otherwise, that he doth ever intermix the 
correction and amendment of his mind with the use and employ- 
ment thereof. 



Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. 
Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring ; for 
ornament, is in discourse ; and for ability, is in the judgment 
and disposition of business ; for expert men can execute, and 
perhaps judge of particulars, one by one ; but the general coun- 
sels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from 
those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies, is 
sloth ; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation ; to 
make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a 
scholar ; they perfect nature, and are perfected by experience — 
for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by 
study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much 
at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men 
contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use 
them ; for they teach not their own use ; but that is a wisdom 
without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not 
to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, 
nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. 
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some 
few to be chewed and digested : that is, some books are to be 
read only in parts ; others to be read, but not curiously ; and 
some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. 



1625-1649.] joxsoN. 151 

Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of 
them by others ; but that Avould be only in the less important 
arguments, and the meaner sort of books ; else distilled books 
are, like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading 
maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an 
exact man ; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need 
have a great memory ; if he confer little, he had need have a 
present wit ; and if he read little, he had need have much cun- 
ning, to seem to know that he doth not. 



THE END OF KNOWLEDGE. 

It is an assured truth, and a conclusion of experience, that 
a little or superficial knowledge of philosophy may incline the 
mind of man to atheism; but a further proceeding therein doth 
bring the mind back again to religion : for in the entrance of 
philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto the 
senses, do offer themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and 
stay there, it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause ; 
but when a man passeth on farther, and seeth the dependence 
of causes, and the works of Providence, then, according to the 
allegory of the poets, he will easily believe that the highest link 
of nature's chain must needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter''s 
chair. To conclude, therefore, let no man upon a weak con- 
ceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain, 
that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the 
Book of GocVs word^ or in the Book of GocVs luorks ; divinity 
or philosophy ; but rather let men endeavour an endless pro- 
gress, or proficiency in both : only let men beware that they 
apply both to charity, and not to swelling ; to use, and not to 
ostentation ; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle, or 
confound these learnings together. 



BEN JONSON, 1574— ] 637. 

Benjamin Jonson, or Ben Jonson, as he signed his own name, was the 
son of a clergyman in Westminster, and born in 1574, about a month after 
his father's death. He was educated at Westminster, but his mother, having 
taken a bricklayer for her second husband, removed him from school, where 
he had made extraordinary progress, to work under his step-father. Dis- 
gusted with this occupation, he escaped, enlisted in the army, and went to 
the Netherlands. On his return to England, lie entered Cambridge; but 



152 JONSON. [cHARLES I. 

the failure of pecuniary resources obliging him to quit the university, he 
applied to the theatre for employment. Though at first his station was a 
low one, he soon, by his own industry and talent, rose to distinction, and 
gained great celebrity as a dramatic writer. His works altogether consist 
of about fifty-four dramatic pieces,^ but by far the greater part of them are 
masques and interludes, for which his genius seemed better fitted, being 
too destitute of passion and sentiment for the regular drama. " His trage- 
dies," says a critic, "seem to bear about the same resemblance to Shak- 
speare's, that sculpture does to actual life."^ There are, however, interspersed 
throughout his works, many lyrical pieces that will bear a comparison with 
any in our language. Of these, the following may be taken as a specimen. 

CUPID. 

[From ^'-Masques at CouH^"\ 

Beauties, have ye seen this toy, 
Called love ! a little boy 
Almost naked, wanton, blind, 
Cruel now, and then as kind? 
If he be amongst ye, say ! 
He is Venus' run-away. 

She that will but now discover 
Where the winged wag doth hover, 
Shall receive to night a kiss. 
How or Avhere herself would wish, 
But ^vho brings him, to his mother 
Shall have that kiss, and another. 

He hath of marks about him plenty, 
You shall know him among twenty : 
All his body is a fire, 
And his breath a flame intire. 
That, being shot like lightning in. 
Wounds the heart, but not the skin. 

At his sight the sun hath turned, 
Neptime in the waters burned ; 
Hell hath felt a greater beat : 
Jove himself forsook his seat : 
From the centre to the sky 
Are his trophies reared high. 

^ The four best comedies of Jonson are, " Every Man in his Humour,-' 
<' The Silent Woman," " Volpone" or "The Fox," and the "Alchemist." 
Two of his best tragedies are entitled, " Cataline," and " The Fall of 
Sejanus." 

" " Many were the wit-combats betwixt Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, which 
two I beheld like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war. Master 
Jonson, like the former, was built far higher in learning ; solid, but slow in his 
performances. Shakspeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but 
lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of 
all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention." — Fuller^s Worthies. 



1625-1649.] JONSON. 153 

Wings he hath, which though ye cHp, 

He will fly from hp to lip ; 

Over liver, lights, and heart. 

But not stay in any part. 

And if chance his arrow misses, 

He will shoot himself in kisses. 

He doth bear a golden bow, 
And a quiver, hanging low, 
Full of arrows, that outbrave 
Dian's shafts, where, if he have 
Any head more sharp than other, 
With that first he strikes his mother. 

Still the fairest are his fuel. 
When his days are to be cruel, 
Lovers' hearts are all his food, 
And his baths their warmest blood : 
Nought but wounds his hand doth season. 
And he hates none like to Reason. 

Trust him not : his words, though sweet, 

Seldom with his heart do meet : 

All his practice is deceit, 

Ever}^ gift is but a bait: 

Not a kiss but poison bears, 

And most treason in his tears. 

Idle minutes are his reign : 

Then the straggler makes his gain, 

By presenting maids with toys, 

And wonld have ye think them joys ; 

"Tis the ambition of the elf 

To have all childish as himself. 

If by these ye please to know him. 
Beauties, be not nice, but show him. 
Though ye had a will to hide him, 
Now, we hope, ye'll not abide him. 
Since ye hear his falser play. 
And that he's Venus' run-away. 

The only prose composition of Ben Jonson, is a small tract entitled 
" Discoveries, or Observations on Poetry and Eloquence." It displays his 
judgment and classical learning to great advantage, and the style is unusually 
close, precise, and pure. " The following admirable directions for writing 
well," says Dr. Drake, "should be indeUbly impressed upon the mind of 
every student." 

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING WELL. 

For a man to write well, there are required three necessa- 
ries ; — to read the best authors ; observe the best speakers ; 
and much exercise of his own style. In style, to consider 



154 CAREW. [cHARLES I. 

what ought to be written, and after what manner; he must first 
think, and excogitate his matter; then choose his words, and 
examine the weight of either. Then take care in placing and 
ranking both matter and words, that the composition be comely; 
and to do this with diligence and often. No matter how slow 
the style be at first, so it be laboured and accurate; seek the 
best, and be not glad of the forw^ard conceits, or first words that 
offer themselves to us, but judge of w^hat we invent, and order 
what we approve. Repeat often what we have formerly writ- 
ten; which, beside that it helps the consequence, and makes 
the juncture better, quickens the heat of imagination, that 
often cools in the time of setting down, and gives it new 
strength, as if it grew lustier by the going back. x4.s we see in 
the contention of leaping, they jum.p farthest, that fetch their 
race largest : or, as in throwing a dart or javelin, we force back 
our arms, to make our loose the stronger. Yet if we have a 
fair gale of wind, I forbid not the steering out of our sail, so the 
favour of the gale deceive us not. For all that we invent doth 
please us in the conception or birth ; else we w^ould never set 
it down. But the safest is to return to our judgment, and 
handle over again those things, the easiness of which might 
make them jusdy suspected. So did the best writers in their 
beginnings. They imposed upon themselves care and indus- 
try. They did nothing rashly. They obtained first to write 
well, and then custom made it easy and a habit. By little and 
litde, their matter shewed itself to them more plentifully ; their 
Avords answered, their composition followed; and all,, as in a 
well-ordered family, presented itself in the place. So that the 
sum of all is, ready writing makes not good writing; but good 
writing brings on ready w^riting. 



THOMAS CAREW, 1589-1639. 

Of the personal history of Thomas Carew (born 1589, died 1639) we have 
not many particulars, fie was educated at Oxford, and after travelling 
abroad, was received with great favor at the court of Charles I. for his ele- 
gant manners and personal accomplishments. Ail his poems are short and 
occasional, and were exceedingly popular at the time. " Sprightly, polished, 
and perspicuous," says Headley, "every part of his works displays the man 
of sense, gallantry, and breeding. He has the ease, without the pedantry 
of Waller, and perhaps less conceit:" and Campbell remarks that "his 
poems have touches of elegance and refinement, which their trifling subjects 



1625-1649.] CAREW. 155 

could not have yielded without a delicate ar.d deliberate exercise of the 
fancy; and he unites the point and polish of later times, with many of the 
genial and warm tints of the elder muse." It is deeply to be regretted that 
he should have employed such talents upon subjects generally so trivial, 
when he might have shone in the higher walks of poetry, and built for him- 
self a wide-spread fame. 



EPITAPH ON THE LADY MARY VILLERS. 

The Lady Mary Villers lies 
Under this stone: With weeping eyes 
The parents that first gave her birth, 
And their sad friends, laid her in earth : 
If any of them (reader) were 
Known unto thee, shed a tear: 
Or if thyself possess a gem, 
As dear to thee, as this to them ; 
Though a stranger to this place, 
Bewail in theirs, thine own hard case ; 
For thou perhaps at thy return 
May"st find thy darling in an urn.i 



PERSUASION'S TO LOVE. 

Starve not yourself, because you may 
Thereby make me pine away; 
Nor let brittle beauty make 
You your wiser thoughts forsake : 
For that lovely face will fail, 
Beauty's sweet, but beauty's frail; 
'Tis sooner past, "tis sooner done, 
Than summer's rain, or winter's sun: . 
Most fleeting when it is most dear; 
'Tis gone, while we but say 'tis here. 
These curious locks so aptly twin'd, 
Whose every hair a soul doth bind, 
Will change their auburn hue, and grow 
White, and cold as winter's snow. 
That eye, w^hich now is Cupid's nest, 
Will prove his grave, and all the rest 
Will follow ; in the cheek, chin, nose, 
Nor lily shall be found, nor rose. 
And what will then become of all 
Those, whom now you servants call ? 
Like swallows, when their summer's done, 
They'll fly, and seek some warmer sun. 



' "I have always considered this Epitaph us Carew's masterpiece. 
Headley. 



156 SANDYS. [cHARLES 

PLEASURE. 

Bewitching syren ! golden rottenness ! 

Thou hast with cunning artifice displayed 

Th" enamelled outside, and the honied verge 

Of the fair cup, where deadly poison hirks. 

Within, a thousand sorrows dance the round ; 

And. like a shell, pain circles thee without. 

Grief is the shadow waitmg on thy steps, 

Which, as thy joys 'gin towards their west decUne, 

Doth to a giant's spreadhig form extend 

Thy dwarfish stature. Thou thyself art pain, 

Greedy, intense desire ; and the keen edge 

Of thy fierce appetite oft strangles thee, 

And cuts thy slender thread ; but still the terror 

And apprehension of thy hasty end 

INIingles Avith gall thy most refined sweets. 

Yet thy Circean charms transform the world. 

Captains that have resisted war and death, 

TS'ations that over fortune have triumphed, 

Are by thy magic made efieminate ; 

Empires, that know no hmits but the poles. 

Have in thy wanton lap melted away. 

Thou "vvert the author of the first excess 

That drew this reformation on the gods ; 

Canst thou, then, dream those powers that from heaven 

Banished the effect, \vill there enthrone the cause ? 

To thy voluptuous den, fly, witch from hence ; 

There dwell, for ever drowned in brutish sense. 



GEORGE SANDYS, 15S7— 1643. 

This eminent sacred poet, the son of Archbishop Sandys, was born in 
1587, and in his eleventh year he entered St. Mary's Hall, Oxford. He 
spent many years in travelling, after which he returned to England, and died 
1643. 

" The principal v^ork of Sandys is a translation of the Psalms of David, 
incomparably the most poetical in the English language, but yet, at the pre- 
sent day, scarcely known.'' 

THE LAMENTATION OF DAVID OVER SAUL AND JONATHAN. 

Thy beauty, Israel, is fled. 

Sunk to the dead : 
How are the valiant fallen ! the slain 

Thy mountains stain. 
Oh ! let it not in Gath be known. 
Nor in the streets of Ashkelon. 



1625-1649.] SANDYS. 157 

Lest that sad story should excite 

Their dire delight! 
Lest in the torrent of our woe, 

Their pleasure flow : 
Lest their triumphant daughters ring 
Their cymbals, and their Paeans sing. 

Yon hills of Gilboa, never may 

You offerings pay ; 
No morning dew, nor fruitful showers. 

Clothe you with flowers : 
Saul and his arms there made a spoil, 
As if untouched with sacred oil. 

The bow of noble Jonathan 

Great battles won ; 
His arrows on the mighty fed, 

With slaughter red, 
Saul never raised his arm in vain, 
His sword still glutted with the slain. 

How lovely! how pleasant! when 

They lived with men ! 
Than eagles swifter ; stronger far 

Than lions are : 
Whom love in life so strongly tied, 
The stroke of death could not divide. 

Sad Israel's daughters, weep for Saul ; 

Lament his fall. 
Who fed you with the earth's increase, 

And crowned with peace ; 
With robes of Tyrian purple decked, 
And gems which sparkling light reflect. 

How are thy worthies by the sword 

Of war devoured ! 
Jonathan ! the better part 

Of my torn heart ! 
The savage rocks have drunk thy blood : 
My brother ! how kind ! how good ! 

Thy love was great ; O never more 

To man, man bore ! 
No woman when most passionate, 

Loved at that rate ! 
How are the mighty fallen in fight I 
They and tlieir glory, set in night ! 



158 CHILLINGWORTH. [cHARLES I. 



WILLIAM CHILLINGWORTH, 1602—1644. 

One of the most distinguished divines of the Church of England, and 
one of the ablest opposers of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, is 
William Chillingworth. He was born in Oxford in 1602, and studied 
there. Soon after taking his degree, a Jesuit, by the name of Fisher, 
argued him into a belief of the doctrines of Popery, and he consequently 
went to the Jesuits' college at Douay, and there studied for some time. But 
his friends induced him to return to Oxford, where, after additional study of 
the points of difference between the Papists and Protestants, he was con- 
vinced of his error, and in his great work, soon after published, entitled 
"The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation," showed himself 
to be one of the most able defenders of the Protestant church that England 
ever produced. In it, he maintains that the Scriptures are the only rule of 
faith and practice, and the only rule to which appeals ought to be made in 
theological controversies. These points he proves conclusively, and the 
work has ever been considered as a model of perspicuous reasoning. 

Locke, in one of his works, after setting forth the great importance of 
perspicuity in the art of speaking, says, " There must also be right reason- 
ing, without which perspicuity serves but to expose the speaker. And for 
attaining this end, I should propose the constant reading of Chillingworth, 
who, by his example, will both teach perspicuity and the way of right 
reasoning, better than any work I know." And Gibbon, the historian, 
alluding to our author, on his recantation from popery, says, "His new 
creed was built on the principle, that the Bible is our sole judge, and private 
reason our sole interpreter, and he most ably maintains this position in the 
'Religion of a Protestant,' a book which is still esteemed the most solid 
defence of the Reformation." 



THE NECESSITY OF AN UNADULTERATED SCRIPTURE. 

He that would usurp an absolute lordship and tyranny over 
any people, need not put himself to the trouble and difficulty 
of abrogating and disannulling the laws, made to maintain the 
common liberty ; for he may frustrate their intent, and compass 
his own designs as well, if he can get the power and authority 
to interpret them as he pleases, and add to them what he pleases, 
and to have his interpretations and additions stand for laws : if 
he can rule his people by his laws, and his laws by his lawyers. 
So the church of Rome, to establish her tyranny over men's 
consciences, needed not either to abolish or corrupt the Holy 
Scriptures, the pillars and supporters of christian liberty : but 
the more expedite way, and therefore more likely to be success- 
ful, was, to gain the opinion and esteem of the public and 
authorized interpreter of them, and the authority of adding to 



1625-1649.] CHILLINGWORTH. 159 

them what doctrine she pleased, under the title of traditions or 
definitions. The matter being once thus ordered, and the Holy 
Scriptures being made in effect not your directors and judges 
(no farther than you please), but your servants and instruments, 
always pressed and in readiness to advance your designs, and 
disabled wholly with minds so qualified to prejudice or impeach 
them ; it is safe for you to put a crown on their head, and a 
reed in their hands, and to bow before them, and cry, " Hail, 
King of the Jews!" to pretend a great deal of esteem, and 
respect, and reverence to them, as here you do. But to little 
purpose is verbal reverence without entire submission, and sin- 
cere obedience ; and, as our Saviour said of some, so th% 
scripture, could it speak, I believe would say to you, " Why 
call ye me. Lord, Lord, and do not that which I command 
you ?" Cast av/ay the vain and arrogant pretence of infalli- 
bility, which makes your errors incurable. Leave picturing 
God, and worshipping him by pictures. " Teach not for doc- 
trine the commandments of men." Debar not the laity of the 
testament of Christ's blood. Let your public prayers and 
psalms, and hymns, be in such language as is for the edifica- 
tion of the assistants. Take not from the clergy tliat liberty of 
marriage which Christ hath left them. Do not impose upon 
men that humility of worshipping angels which St. Paul con- 
demns. Teach no more proper sacrifices of Christ but one. 
Acknowledge them that die in Christ to be blessed, and " to 
rest from their labours." Acknowledge the sacrament after 
consecration, to be bread and wine, as well as Christ's body 
and blood. Let not the weapons of your warfare be carnal, 
such as are massacres, treasons, persecutions, and, in a word, 
all means either violent or fraudulent: these and other things, 
which the scripture commands you, do, and then we shall will- 
ingly give you such testimony as you deserve ; but till you do 
so, to talk of estimation, respect and reverence to the scripture, 
is nothing else but talk. 

SCRIPTURE ALONE THE RULE OF FAITH. 

This presumptuous imposing of the senses of men upon the 
words of God, the special senses of men upon the general words 
of God, and laying them upon men's consciences together, 
under the equal penalty of death and damnation ; this vain con- 
ceit that we can speak of the things of God, better than in the 
words of God : this deifying our own interpretations, and 
tyrannous enforcing them upon others : this restraining of the 



160 CHILLINGWORTH. [cHARLES I. 

word of God from that latitude and generality, and the under- 
standings of men from that liberty, wherein Christ and the 
apostles left them, is, and hath been, the only fountain of all the 
schisms of the church, and that which makes them immortal ; 
the common incendiary of Christendom, and that which (as I 
said before) tears into pieces, not the coat, but the bowels and 
members of Christ. Take away these walls of separation, 
and all will quickly be one. Take away this persecuting, 
burning, cursing, damning of men for not subscribing to the 
words of men, as the words of God ; require of christians only 
to believe Christ, and to call no man master but him only ; let 
1[hose leave claiming infallibility that have no title to it, and let 
them that in their words disclaim it, disclaim it likewise in their 
actions. In a word, take away tyranny, which is the devil's 
instrument to support errors, and superstitions, and impieties, in 
the several parts of the world, which could not otherwise long 
withstand the power of truth ; I say take away tyranny, and 
restore christians to their just and full liberty of captivating 
their understanding to scripture only, and as rivers, when they 
have a free passage, run all to the ocean, so it may well be 
hoped, by God's blessing, that universal liberty, thus mode- 
rated, may quickly reduce Christendom to truth and unity. 



THE SIN OF DUELLING.' 

From the Sermon on the text, " The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God:'' 

We are so far from seeking that honour which is of God, 
from endeavouring to attain unto, or so much as countenancing 

^ This wicked as well as absurd practice has been held up to animadver- 
sion in every variety of manner; from the most serious and solemn argu- 
ment to the most laughter-provoking ridicule. As a specimen of the one, 
read Shakspeare's '' As You Like It," Act v. Scene iv.; and as a specimen of 
the other, read the a'dmirable discourse of Rev. Lyman Beecher, D. D. 
"Will you intrust life to murderers, and liberty to despots? Will you 
constitute those legislators, who despise you, and despise equal laws, and 
wage war with the eternal principles of Justice ? Had the duellist destroyed 
your neighbor ; had your own father been killed by the man who solicits your 
suffrage ; had your son, laid low by his hand, been brought to your door pale 
in death and weltering in blood, would you then think the crime a small one ? 
Would you honor with your confidence, and elevate to power by your vote, 
the guilty monster? And what would you think of your neighbours, if, re- 
gardless of your agony, they should reward him ? And yet, such scenes of 
Tinulterable anguish are multiplied every year. Every year the duellist is 
cutting down the neighbour ot somebody.^' 

Read also, "An Oration on the True Grandeur of Nations," by Charles 
Sumner, Esq., a production of the highest order of eloquence, scholarship, 
and christian truth. 



1625-1649.] CHILLINGWORTH. 161 

such virtues, which God hath often professed that he will exalt 
and glorify, such as humility, and patiently bearing of injuries, 
that we place our honour and reputation in the contrary; that 
is counted noble and generous in the world's opinion, which is 
odious and abominable in the sight of God. If thy brother 
offend or injure thee, forgive him, saith Christ ; if he proceed, 
forgive him : what, until seven times ? Ay, until seventy times 
seven times. But how is this doctrine received now in the 
world ? What counsel would men, and those none of the worst 
sort, give thee in such a case ? How would the soberest, dis- 
creetest, well-bred christians advise thee ? Why thus ; If thy 
brother or thy neighbour have offered thee an injury, or affront, 
forgive him ! by no means ; of all things in the world take heed 
of that: thou art utterly undone in thy reputation then, if thou 
dost forgive him. What is to be done then? Why, let not 
thy heart rest, let all other business and employment be laid 
aside, till thou hast his blood. What ! a man's blood for an 
injurious passionate speech, for a disdainful look! Nay, this 
is not all : that thou mayst gain amongst men the reputation of 
a discreet well-tempered murderer, be sure thou killest him not 
in passion, when thy blood is hot and boiling with the provo- 
cation, but proceed with as much temper and settledness of 
reason, with as much discretion and preparedness, as thou 
wouldst to the communion: after some several days' medita- 
tion, invite him, mildly and affably, into some retired place ; 
and there let it be put to the trial, whether thy life or his must 
answer the injury. 

Oh most horrible Christianity ! That it should be a most sure 
settled way for a man to run into danger and disgrace with the 
world, if he shall dare to perform a commandment of Christ's, 
which is as necessary to be observed by him, if he have any 
hope of attaining heaven, as meat and drink is for the sustain- 
ing of his life ! That ever it should enter into the heart of a 
christian, to walk so exactly and curiously contrary to the ways 
of God ; that whereas he every day and hour sees himself con- 
temned and despised by thee, who art his servant, his creature, 
upon whom he might (without any possible imputation of un- 
righteousness) pour down the phials of his fierce wrath and 
indignation ! yet He, notwithstanding, is patient and long-sufFer- 
ifig towards thee, hoping that his long-suffering may lead thee 
to repentance, and earnestly desiring and soliciting thee by his 
ministers to be reconciled unto him ! Yet, that thou, for all 
this, for a blow in anger, it may be, for a word, or less, shouldest 
take upon thee' to send his soul, or thine, or, it may be, both, 
11 



162 QUARLES. [cHARLES I. 

clogged and pressed with all your sins unrepented of (for thou 
canst not be so wild as to think thou canst repent of thy sins, 
and yet resolve upon such a business), to expect your sentence 
before the judgment-seat of God ; wilfully and irrecoverably to 
deprive yourselves of all those blessed means, which God had 
contrived for your salvation, the power of his word, the effi- 
cacy and virtue of his sacraments, all which you shall utterly 
exclude yourselves from, and leave yourselves in such a state, 
that it shall not be in God's power to do you any good ! 



FRANCIS QUARLES, 1592—1644. 

Francis Quarles was born at Stewards, near Romford, Essex, in 1592. 
He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, whence he went to Lin- 
coln's Inn, where "he studied," says his widow, "the laws of England, not 
so much out of desire to benefit himself thereby, as his friends and neigh- 
bors, and to compose suits and differences between them." Subsequently 
he went over to Ireland, and became secretary to Archbishop Usher. On 
the breaking out of the rebellion there, in 1641, he fled to England for safety, 
and died three years after. 

"There is not," says Montgomery, "in English literature a name more 
wronged than that of Quarles ; wronged, too, by those who ought best to 
have discerned, and most generously acknowledged his merits in contradis- 
tinction to his defects." True, his writings are occasionally defaced by vul- 
garisms and deformed by quaint conceits, but his beauties abundantly atone 
for his defects ; the latter being comparatively few, while his works gene- 
rally are characterized by great learning, lively fancy, and profound piety. 
"He too often, no doubt," says Headley, "mistook the enthusiasm of de- 
votion for the inspiration of fancy : to mix the waters of Jordan and Helicon 
in the same cup was reserved for the hand of Milton ; and for him and him 
only, to find the bays of Mount Olivet equally verdant with those of Par- 
nassus. Yet, as the effusions of a real poetical mind, however thwarted by 
untowardness of subject, will seldom be rendered totally abortive, we find 
in Quarles original imagery, striking sentiment, fertility of expression, and 
happy combinations ; with a compression of style that merits the observation 
of writers of verse." 

His chief poetical works are his "Emblems," "Divine Poems," and 
"Job Militant, with Meditations divine and moral." His "Emblems" 
consist of a set of quaint pictorial designs, referring to moral and religious 
ideas, and each elucidated by appropriate verses. 



1625-1649.] QUARLES. 163 

O THAT THOU WOULDST HIDE ME IN THE GRAVE, THAT THOU 
WOULDST KEEP ME IN SECRET UNTIL THY WRATH BE PAST. 

Psalms. 

Ah ! whither shall I fly ? what path untrod 
Shall I seek out to 'scape the flaming rod 
Of my offended, of my angry God % 

Where shall I sojourn'? what kind sea will hide 
My head from thunder ? where shall I abide, 
Until his flames be quench'd or laid aside? 

What if my feet should take their hasty flight. 
And seek protection in the shades of night 1 
Alas ! no shades can blind the God of light. 

What if my soul should take the wings of day, 
And find some desert ; if she spring away, 
The wings of Vengeance clip as fast as they. 

What if some solid rock should entertain 
My frighted soull can solid rocks restrain 
The stroke of Justice and not cleave in twain 1 

Nor sea, nor shade, nor shield, nor rock nor cave, 

Nor silent deserts, nor the sullen grave. 

Where flarae-ey'd Furyi means to smite, can save. 

'Tis vain to flee ; 'till gentle Mercy show 

Her better eye, the further off" we go. 

The swing of Justice deals the mightier blow. 

Th' ingenuous child, corrected, doth not fly 
His angry mother's hand, but clings more nigh. 
And quenches with Iris tears her flaming eye. 

Great God ! there is no safety here below ; 

Thou art my fortress, thou that seem'st my foe, 

'Tis thou, that strik'st the stroke, must guard the blow. 



THE WORLD. 

She is empty: hark! she sounds: there's nothing there 

But noise to fill thy ear ; 
Thy vain inquiry can at length but find 

A blast of murmuring wind: 
It is a cask that seems as full as fair, 

But merely tunned with air. 
Fond youth, go build thy hopes on better grounds ; 

The soul that vainly founds 
Her joys upon this world, but feeds on empty sounds. 

' flame-ey'd Fury.] An epithet highly original and fine, Shak- 

speare uses fir e-ey'd Fury in his Romeo and Juliet. 



164 QUARLES. [cHARLES I. 

She is empty: hark! she sounds : there's nothhig in't; 

The spark-engendering flint 
Shall sooner melt, and hardest raunce* shall first 

Dissolve and quench the thirst, 
Ere this false world shall still thy stormy breast 

With smooth-faced alms of rest. 
Thou may'st as well expect meridian light 

From shades of black-mouthed night, 
As in this empty world to find a full delight. 

She is empty : hark ! she sounds : 'tis void and vast ; 

What if some flattering blast 
Of flatuous honour should perchance be there, 

And whisper in thine ear? 
It is but wind, and blows but where it list, 

And vanisheth like mist. 
Poor honour earth can give ! What generous mind 

Would be so base to bind 
Her heaven-bred soul, a slave to serve a blast of wind 1 

She is empty : hark ! she sounds : 'tis but a ball 

For fools to play withal ; 
The painted fllm but of a stronger bubble, 

That's lined with silken trouble. 
It is a. world whose vi^ork and recreation 

Is vanity and vexation; 
A hag, repaired with vice-complexioned paint, 

A quest-house of complaint. 
It is a saint, a fiend; worse fiend when most a saint. 

She is empty: hark! she sounds: 'tis vain and void. 

What's here to be enjoyed, 
But grief and sickness, and large bills of sorrow, 

Drawn now and crossed to-morrow ? 
Or, what are men but puffs of dying breath. 

Revived with living death? 
Fond youth, build thy hopes on surer grounds 

Thau what dull fiesh propounds : 
Trust not this hollow ground ; she is empty : hark she sounds. 



MERCY TEMPERING JUSTICE. 

Had not the milder hand of Mercy broke 
The furious violence of that fatal stroke 
Offended Justice struck, we had been quite 
Lost in the shadows of eternal night. 
Thy mercy, Lord, is hke the morning sun. 
Whose beams undo what sable night hath done ; 
Or like a stream, the current of whose course. 
Restrained awhile, runs with a swifter force. 

^ A dry crust. 



1625-1649.] QUARLEs. 165 

Oh ! let me glow beneath those sacred beams, 
And after, bathe me in those silver streams ; 
To Thee alone my sorrows shall appeal : 
Hath earth a wound too hard for heaven to heal? 



HOPE IN GOD. 

In thee, dear Lord, my pensive soul respires. 
Thou art the fulness of my choice desires; 
Thou art that sacred spring, whose waters burst 
In streams to him that seeks with holy thirst. 
Thrice happy man, thrice happy thirst, to bring 
Thy fainting soul to so, so sweet a spring ; 
Thrice happy he, whose well-resolved breast 
Expects no other aid, no other rest; 
Thrice happy he, whose downy age has been 
Reclaimed by scourges from the pride of sin. 
And early seasoned with the taste of truth. 
Remembers his Creator in his youth. 

Though in his day Quarles was most known as a poet, he was also the 
author of a few prose works, the principal of which is the " Enchiridion, ^ 
containing Institutions divine, contemplative, practical, moral, ethical, eco- 
nomical, political." Of this Headley remarks, "had this little piece been 
written at Athens or Rome, its author would have been classed with the 
wise men of his country." The following are some specimens of it : 

If thou be ambitious of honour, and yet fearful of the canker 
of honour, envy, so behave thyself, that opinion may be satis- 
fied in this, that thou seekest merit, and not fame; and that 
thou attributest thy preferment rather to Providence, than thy 
own virtue. Honour is a due debt to the deserver ; and who 
ever envied the payment of a debt ? A just advancement is a 
providential act ; and who ever envied the act of Providence ? 

If evil men speak good, or good men evil, of thy con- 
versation, examine all thy actions, and suspect thyself. But 
if evil men speak evil of thee, hold it as thy honour ; and, by 
way of thankfulness, love them ; but upon condition, that they 
continue to hate thee. 

To tremble at the sight of thy sin, makes thy faith the 
less apt to tremble : the devils believe and tremble, because 
they tremble at what they believe ; their belief brings trem- 
bling : thy trembling brings belief. 

If thou desire to be truly valiant, fear to do any injury : 
He that fears not to do evil, is always afraid to suffer evil: 
he that never fears is desperate : and he that fears always, 

* See Retrospective Review, vol. ix. p. 358. 



166 QUARLES. [cHARLES I. 

is a coward. He is the true valiant man, that dares nothing 
but what he may, and fears nothing but what he ought. 

If thou stand guilty of oppression, or wrongfully possest of 
another's right, see thou make restitution before thou givest an 
alms : if otherwise, what art thou but a thief, and makest God 
thy receiver ? 

When thou prayest for spiritual graces, let thy prayer be 
absolute; when for temporal blessings, add a' clause of God's 
pleasure : in both, with faith and humiliation : So shalt thou, 
undoubtedly, receive what thou desirest, or more, or better. 
Never prayer rightly made, was made unheard, or heard, un- 
granted. 

Not to give to the poor, is to take from him. Not to feed 
the hungry, if thou hast it, is to the utm_ost of thy power to kill 
him. That, therefore, thou mayst avoid both sacrilege and 
murder, be charitable. 

Hath any wronged thee? Be bravely revenged: slight it, 
and the work's begun ; forgive it, and 'tis finished : he is below 
himself that is not above an injury. 

Gaze not on beauty too much, lest it blast thee; nor too 
long, lest it blind thee : nor too near, lest it burn thee ; if thou 
like it, it deceives thee ; if thou love it, it disturbs thee ; if thou 
lust after it, it destroys thee : if virtue accompany it, it is the 
heart's paradise ; if vice associate it, it is the soul's purgatory : 
it is the wise man's bon-fire, and the fool's furnace. 

Use law and physic only for necessity ; they that use them 
otherwise, abuse themselves into weak bodies, and light purses : 
they are good remedies, bad businesses, and worse recreations. 

If what thou hast received from God thou sharest to the 
poor, thou hast gained a blessing by the hand ; if what thou 
hast taken from the poor, thou givest to God, thou hast pur- 
chased a curse into the bargain. He that puts to pious uses 
what he hath got by impious usury, robs the spittle to make an 
hospital ; and the cry of the one, will out-plead the prayers of 
the other. 

Give not thy tongue too great a liberty, lest it take thee pri- 
soner. A word unspoken is, like the sword in the scabbard, 
thine; if vented, thy sword is in another's hand. If thou de- 
sire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue. 

Wisdom without innocency is knavery ; innocency without 
wisdom is foolery : be, therefore, as wise as serpents, and 
innocent as doves. The subtilty of the serpent instructs the 
innocency of the dove ; the innocency of the dove corrects 



1649-1660.] DRUMMOND. 167 

the subtil ty of the serpent. What God hath joined together, 
let no man separate. 



WILLIAM DRUMMOND, 1585—1649. 

William Drummond, of Hawthornden, the first Scottish poet that wrote 
well in English, was born in 1585. " To the scholar and the wit he added 
every elegant attainment. After forming his taste at the University of Edin- 
burgh, he enlarged his views by travelling and by a cultivation of the modern 
languages. At first he appears to have studied the law, but soon left it for 
more congenial pursuits. The character of his poetry is various, consisting 
of Sonnets, Epigrams, Epitaphs, religious and other poems. His Sonnets 
are the most beautiful, and some of them of the highest excellence. His 
great excellence is, unaffected feeling, and unaffected language.'" His feel- 
ings were so intense on the side of the royalists, that the execution of Charles 
is said to have hastened his death, which took place at the close of the same 
year, December, 1649. The following are specimens of his sonnets : 

THE PRAISE OF A SOLITARY LIFE. 

Thrice happy he, who by some shady grove, 
Far from the clamorous world, doth live his own, 
Though solitary, who is not alone, 
But doth converse with that eternal love. 
O how more sweet is bird's harmonious moan, 
Or the hoarse sobbings of the widow'd dove, 
Than those smooth whisp'rings near a prince's throne, 
Which good make doubtful, do the evil approve! 
O! how more sweet is zephyr's wholesome breath, 
And sighs embalm'd, which new-born flow'rs mafold, 
Than that applause vain honour doth bequeath ! 
How sweet are streams to poison drank in gold ! 
The world is full of horrors, troubles, slights : 
Woods' harmless shades have only true delights. 



ON SLEEP. 

Sleep, Silence' child, sweet father of soft rest, 
Prince, whose approach peace to all mortals brings, 
Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings, 
Sole comforter of minds which are oppress'd; 
Lo, by thy charming rod, all breathing things 
Lie slumb'ring, with forgetfulness possess'd. 
And yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy M^ings 
Thou spar'st, alas ! who cannot be thy guest. 

* See Retrospective Review, vol. ix. p. 358. 



168 DRUMMOND. [INTERREGNUM 

Since I am thine, O come, but with that face 
To inward Hght, which thou art wont to show, 
With feigned solace ease a true-felt woe ; 
Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace, 

Come as thou wilt, and what thou wilt bequeath, 

I long to kiss the image of my death. 

The lady to whom he was engaged to be married was suddenly snatched 
away by death, and the sonnets which dwell on his own afflictions, are as 
full of true feehng as poetic merit. 



ON SPRING. 

Sweet Spring, thou com'st with all thy goodly train. 
Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright with flow'rs. 
The zej)hyrs curl the green locks of the plain. 
The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their show'rs. 
Sweet Spring, thou com'st — but, ah ! my pleasant hours, 
And happy days, with thee come not again ; 
The sad memorials only of my pain 
Do with thee come, which turn my sweets to sours. 
. Thou art the same which still thou wert before. 
Delicious, lusty, amiable, fair; 

But she whose breath embalm'd thy wholesome air, 
Is gone ; nor gold, nor gems, can her restore. 

Neglected virtues, seasons go and come, 

When thine forgot lie closed in a tomb. 

What doth it serve to see the sun's bright face, 
And skies enamell'd with the Indian gold? 
Or the moon in a fierce chariot rolFd, 
And all the glory of that starry place? 
What doth it serve earth's beauty to behold, 
The mountain's pride, the meadow's flow'ry grace, 
The stately comeliness of forests old. 
The sport of floods which would themselves embrace ? 
What doth it serve to hear the sylvans' songs, 
The cheerful thrush, the nightingale's sad strains, 
Which in dark shades seem to deplore my wrongs ? 
For what doth serve all that this world contains. 
Since she, for w^hom those once to me were dear, 
Can have no part of them now with me here 1 

The following lines are worthy of note, as having evidently been imi- 
tated by Pope : 

Ah ! as a pilgrim who the Alps doth pass. 
Or Atlas' temples crown'd with Winter's glass, 
The airy Caucasus, the Apennine, 
Pyrene's clifts where sun doth never shine. 
When he some heaps of hills hath overwent. 
Begins to think on rest, his journey spent. 



1649-1660.] CRASHAw. 169 

Till mounting some tall mountain he do find 
More heights before him than he left behind.' 



RICHARD CRASHAW, 1650.2 

Richard Ckashaw, a religious poet, an accomplished scholar, and a 
powerful and popular preacher, was born in London, but the date of his 
birth is unknown. His father was an author, and a preacher of the Temple 
church, London. He took his degree at Cambridge, where he published 
his sacred poems of "Steps to the Temple." In the year 1644 he was 
ejected from his living on refusing to subscribe to the Covenant, and soon 
afterwards he professed his faith in the Roman Church. Through the 
influence of his friend Cowley, the poet, he was introduced to the exiled 
Queen Henrietta, who obtained for him a small office at R.ome, where he 
died about the year 1650. 

The poems of Crashaw are not much known, but they "display deli- 
cate fancy, great tenderness and singular beauty of diction." "He has," 
says Headley, "originality in many parts, and as a translator is entitled to 
the highest praise. 3 To his attainments which were numerous and ele- 
gant, all his biographers have borne witness." The lines on a prayer 
book, Coleridge considered one of the best poems in our language. 

LINES ON A PRAYER BOOK SENT TO MRS. R. 

Lo ! here a little volume, but great book, 

(Fear it not, sweet, 

It is no h}TDOcrite,) 
Much larger in itself than in its look. 
It is in one rich handful heaven and all — 
Heaven's royal hosts encarap"d thus small; 
To prove that true, schools used to tell, 
A thousand angels in one point can dwell. 

It is love's great artillery, 

"Which here contracts itself, and comes to lie 

1 So pleas'd at first the tow'ring Alps we try, 
Mount o-er the vales, and seem to tread the sky; 
Th' eternal snows appear already past, 
And the first clouds and mountains seem the last ; 
But those attain'd, we tremble to survey 
The growing labor of the lengthen'd way, 
Th' increasing prospect tires our wondering eyes, 
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise ! 

Essay on Criticism, 228. 
2 Poet and Saint ! to thee alone are given 
The two most sacred names of earth and heaven. Cowley. 
^ Pope, in his Eloisa to Abelard, has borrowed largely from this poet. 



170 CRASHAW. [interregnum 

Close couched in your white bosom, and from thence, 

As from a snowy fortress of defence, 

Against the ghostly foe to take your part. 

And fortify the hold of your chaste heart. 

It is the armoury of light : 

Let constant use but keep it bright, 

You'll find it yields 
To holy hands and humble hearts, 

More swords and shields 
Than sin hath snares or hell hath darts. 

Only be sure 

The hands be pure 
That hold these weapons, and the eyes 

Those of turtles, chaste and true, 
Wakeful and wise. 

Here is a friend shall fight for you. 
Hold but this book before your heart, 
Set prayer alone to play his part. 
But oh! the heart 
That studies this high art 
Must be a sure housekeeper, 
And yet no sleeper. 

Dear soul, be strong, 

Mercy will come ere long, 
And bring her bosom full of blessings — 

Flowers of never-fading graces, 
To make immortal dressings, 

For worthy souls whose wise embraces 
Store up themselves for Him who is alone 
The spouse of virgins, and the virgin's son. 

But if the noble Bridegroom, when He come, 

Shall find the wandering heart from home, 

Leaving her chaste abode 

To gad abroad 
Amongst the gay mates of the god of flies ;^ 

To take her pleasure and to play, 

And keep the devil's holiday; 

To dance in the sunshine of some smiling 

But beguiling 
Sphere of sweet and sugared lies ; 
Of all this hidden store 
Of blessings, and ten thousand more 

Doubtless he will unload 
Himself some other where ; 

And pour abroad 
His precious sweets. 
On the fair soul whom first he meets, 

^ Beelzebub. 



1649-1660.] FLETCHER. 171 

fair ! fortunate ! ricli ! O dear ! 

! happy and thrice happy she, 
Dear silver-breasted dove, 

Whoe'er she be, 
Whose early love 
With winged vows 

Makes haste to meet her morning spouse, 
And close with his immortal kisses ! 
Happy soul ! who never misses 

To improve that precious hour; 
And every day 
Seize her sweet prey, 
All fresh and fragrant as he rises, 

Dropping with a balmy shower, 
A delicious dew of spices. 
Oh ! let that happy soul hold fast 
Her heavenly armful: she shall taste 

At once ten thousand paradises : 
She shall have power 
To rifle and deflower 

The rich and rosal spring of those rare sweets, 
Which with a swelling bosom there she meets, 
Boundless and infinite, bottomless treasures 
Of pure inebriating pleasures. 
Happy soul! she shall discover 

What joy, what bliss. 

How many heavens at once it is 
To have a God become her lover. 



PHINEAS FLETCHER, 1584—1650. 

Phineas Fletcher was the brother of Giles Fletcher, and born about 
the year 1584. He took his degree at Cambridge, and after completing his 
studies for the ministry, was presented with the living of Hilgay, in Nor- 
folk, in 1621, which he held for twenty-nine years; and it is supposed that 
he died there in 1650. 

His chief poem is entitled " The Purple Island," which title, on being 
first heard, would suggest ideas totally different from what is the real sub- 
ject of the poem. But the truth is, that it is a sort of anatomical poem, the 
" Purple Island" being nothing less than the human body, the veins and 
arteries of which are filled with the purple fluid, coursing up and down; so 
that the first part of the poem which is anatomically descriptive, is not a 
little dry and uninteresting. But after describing the body, he proceeds to 
personify the passions and intellectual faculties. "Here," says Headley, 
"fatigued attention is not merely relieved, but fascinated and enraptured; 
there is a boldness of outline, a majesty of manner, a brilliancy of colouring, 
and an air of life, that we look for in vain in modern productions, and that 



172 FLETCHER. [INTERREGNUM 

rival, if not surpass, what we meet with of the kind even in Spenser, from 
whom our author caught his inspiration." This is rather extravagant, and 
yet a few passages can be selected from Fhineas Fletcher, that, for beauty, 
are scarcely exceeded by any poetry in the language. 



THE SHEPHERD S LIFE.l 

Thrice, oh thrice happy, shepherd's life and state, 

When courts are happiness' unhappy paw^ns ! 

His cottage low, and safely humble gate 

Shuts out proud Fortune, with her scorns and fawns : 
No feared treason breaks his quiet sleep : 
Singing all day, his flocks he learns to keep ; 

Himself as imiocent as are his simple sheep. 

No Serian worms he knows, that with their tliread 
Draw out their silken lives ; nor silken pride : 
His lambs' warm fleece well fits his little need, 
Not in that proud Sidonian tincture dy'd: 

No empty hopes, no courtly fears him fright ; 

Nor begging wants his middle fortune bite: 
But sweet content exiles both misery and spite. 

Instead of music and base flattering tongues, 
Which wait to first salute my Lord's uprise ; 
The cheerful lark wakes him with early songs, 
And birds' sweet whistling notes unlock his eyes : 

In country plays is all the strife he uses. 

Or sing, or dance unto the rural Muses ; 
And, but in music's sports, all difference refuses. 

His certain life, that never can deceive him. 

Is full of thousand sweets and rich content; 

The smooth-leav'd beeches in the field, receive him 

With coolest shades, till noon- tide's rage is spent: 
His life is neither tost in boist'rous seas 
Of troublous world, nor lost in slothful ease : 

Pleas'd and full bless'd he lives, when he liis God can please. 

His bed of wool yields safe and quiet sleeps. 
While by his side his faithful spouse hath place : 
His little son into his bosom creeps, 
The lively picture of his father's face : 

Never his humble house or state torment him ; 

Less he could like, if less his God had sent him ; 
And when he dies, green turfs v/itli grassy tomb content him. 

1 These beautiful lines seem to have suggested the plan of a most exquisite 
little piece called The Hamlet, by Thomas Warton, which contains such a 
selection of beautiful rural images, as perhaps no other poem of equal length 
in our language presents us with. The latter part of it more closely reminds 
us of Fletcher. A shepherd's life is to be found in Spenser's Faerie Queene, 
B. VI. Cant. ix. stan. 20. 



1649-1660.] FLETCHER. 173 



Envy the next, Envy with squinted eyes ; 

Sick of a strange disease, his neighbour's health ; 
Best lives he then, when any better dies; 
Is never poor, but in another's wealth : 

On best men's harms and griefs he feeds his fill ; 
Else his own maw doth eat with spiteful will : 
111 must the temper be, where diet is so ill. 

Each eye through divers optics sUly leers, 

Which both his sight and object's self bely • 
So greatest virtue as a moat appears. 

And molehill faults to mountains multiply. 

When needs he must, yet faintly, then he praises; 
Somewhat the deed, much more the means he raises ; 
So marreth what he makes, and praising, most dispraises. 

DECAY OF HUMAN GREATNESS. 

Fond man, that looks on earth for happiness. 
And here long seeks what here is never found ! 
For all our good we hold from heav'n by lease. 
With many forfeits and conditions bound ; 
Nor can we pay the fine, and rentage due : 
Though now but writ, and seal'd, and giv'n anew, 
Yet daily we it break, then daily must renew. 

Why shouldst thou here look for perpetual good, 

At ev'ry loss 'gainst heaven's face repining'? 

Do but behold where glorious cities stood. 

With gilded tops and silver turrets shining ; 

There now the hart fearless of greyhound feeds, 

And lovmg pelican in fancy breeds : 

There screeching satjrrs fill the people's empty stedes.2 

"WTiere is the AssjTian lion's golden hide. 

That all the east once grasp'd in lordly paw ? 

Where that great Persian bear, whose swelHng pride 

The lion's self tore out with rav'nous jaw 1 

Or he which 'twixt a lion and a pard. 

Through all the world with nimble pinions far'd, 

And to his greedy whelps his conquered kingdoms shared. 

Hardly the place of such antiquity. 

Or note of these great monarchies we find : 

Only a fading verbal memory, 

And empty name in writ is lefi; behind : 

But when this second life and glory fades. 

And smks at length in tune's obscurer shades, 

A second fall succeeds, and double death invades. 

'■ " In his description of Envy, Fletcher is superior to Spenser." Retro- 
spective Review, vol. ii. p. 346. - Places. 



174 HALL. [interregnum 

That monstrous beast, which, nurs'd in Tiber's fen, 

Did all the world with hideous shape affray ; 

That fill'd with costly spoil his gaping den, 

And trode down all the rest to dust and clay : 

His batt'ring horns, pull'd out by civil hands 

And iron teeth, lie scatter'd on the sands; 

Back'd, bridled by a monk, with seven heads yoked stands. 

And that black vulture,* which with deathful wing 

O'ershadows half the earth, whose dismal sight 

Frightened the Muses from their native spring, 

Already stoops, and flags with weary flight: 

Who then shall look for happiness beneath ? 

Where each new day proclaims chance, change, and death, 

And life itself 's as flit as is the air we breathe. 



JOSEPH HALL, 1574—1656. 

Few names in our language have united to a greater degree the character 
of an instructive prose writer and a vigorous poet, than Joseph Hall. He 
was born at Briston Park, in Leicestershire, in 1574, and after taking his 
degree at Cambridge, he rose through various church preferments to be 
Bishop of Exeter, and subsequently, in 1641, to be Bishop of Norwich. In 
the same year he joined with the twelve prelates in the protestation of all 
laws made during their forced absence from ParUament. In consequence 
of this, he, with the rest, was sent to the Tower, and was released only on 
giving £5000 bail. Two years after, he was among the number marked out 
for sequestration. After suffering extreme hardships, he was allowed to 
retire on a small pittance, to Higham, near Norwich, where he continued in 
comparative obscurity, but with indefatigable zeal and intrepidity, to exer- 
cise the duties of a pastor, till he closed his days in the year 1656, at the 
venerable age of eighty- two. 

As a poet, Bishop Hall is known by his " Bookes of byting Satyres." 
These were published at the early age of twenty-three. They are marked, 
says Warton,2 v/ith a classical precision to which English poetry had yet 
rarely attained. They are replete with animation of style and sentiment. 
The characters are delineated in strong and lively colouring, and their dis- 
criminations are touched with the masterly traces of genuine humor. His 
chief fault is obscurity, arising from a remote phraseology, constrained com« 
binations, unfamiliar allusions, and abruptness of expression. But it must 
be borne in mind that he was the first English satirist. Pope, on presenting 

* The Turk. 

2 A masterly analysis of these satires may be found in Warton's History of 
English Poetry, vol. iv., sections 62, 63, and 64. 



1649-1660.] HALL. 175 

Mr. West with a copy of his poetical works, observed that he esteemed 
them the best poetry and the truest satire in the language. 



THE ANXIOUS CLIENT AND RAPACIOUS LAWYER. 

The crouching client, with low-bended knee, 
And many worships, and fair flattery. 
Tells on his tale as smoothly as him list; 
But still the lawyer's eye squints on his fist: 
If that seemed lined with a larger fee, 
"Doubt not the suit, the law is plain for thee." 
Tho^ must he buy his vainer hopes with price, 
Disclout his crowns,^ and thank him for advice. 

THE DOMESTIC TUTOR. 

A gentle squire would gladly entertain 

Into his house some trencher-chapelain;^ 

Some willing man that might instruct his sons, 

And that would stand to good conditions.^ 

First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed, 

While his young master lieth o'er his head.s 

Second, that he do, on no default, 

Ever presume to sit above the salt.s 

Third, that he never change his trencher twice. 

Fourth, that he use all common courtesies ; 

Sit bare at meals, and one half rise and wait. 

Last, that he never his young master beat ; 

But he must ask his mother to define 

How many jerks'' she would his back should line. 

All these observed, he could contented be, 

To give five marks and winter livery. 



THE RUSTIC WISHING TO TURN SOLDIER. 

* The sturdy ploughman doth the soldier see 

All scarfed with pied colors to the knee, 

^ Yet even. ^ Pull them out of his purse. 

^ Or, a table-chaplain. In the same sense we have " trencher-knight" in 
" Love's Labor Lost." We still too often see, as did Hall, the depressed 
state of modest, but true genius ; we still see " the learned pate duck to the 
golden fool;" we still see " pastors and teachers" court and flatter men, who 
have little else than their money to recommend them. A pitiable sight in- 
deed ! 

* Pronounced as in four syllables con-di-ti-ons. 

5 This indulgence allowed to the pupil is the reverse of a more ancient 
rule at Oxford, by which the scholars are ordered " to sleep respectively 
under the beds of the Fellows, in a truckle bed, {Trookyll beddys, vulgariter 
nuncupati,) or small bed shifted about upon wheels." 

6 Towards the head of the table was placed the salt, on a large and lofty 
piece of plate. ■> Lashes. 



176 HALL. [interregnum 

Whom Indian pillage hath made fortunate ; 
And now he 'gins to loathe his former state : 
Now doth he inly scorn his Kendal-green, 
And his patch'd cockers'* now despised been ; 
Nor list he now go whistling to the car, 
But sells his team, and settleth to the war. 
Oh war! to them that never tried thee, sweet: 
When' his dead mate falls grovelling at his feet; 
And angry bullets whistle at his ear. 
And his dim eyes see nought but dread and drear. 

THE FASHIONABLE BUT FAMISHED BEAU. 

Seest thou how gayly my young master goes, 

Vaunting himself upon his rising toes ; 

And pranks his hand upon his dagger's side ; 

And picks his glutted teeth since late noon-tide ? 

'Tis Ruffio : Trow'st thou where he dined to-day "? 

In sooth I saw him sit with Duke Humfray. 2 

Hadst thou not told me, I should surely say 

He touch'd no meat of all this live-long day. 

For sure methought, yet that was but a guess, 

His eyes seem'd sunk for very hollowness ; 

But could he have (as I did it mistake) 

So little in his purse, so much upon his back ? 

So nothing in his maw ? yet seemeth by his belt, 

That his gaunt bulk not too much stuffing felt, 

Seest thou how side" it hangs beneath his hip ? 

Hunger and heavy iron makes girdles slip. 

Yet for all that, how stiffly struts he by. 

All trapped in the new-found bravery. 

His hair, French-like, stares on his frighted head, 

One lock amazon-like dishevelled, 

As if he meant to wear a native cord, 

If chance his fates should him that bane afford. 

All British bare upon the bristled skin, 

Close notched is his beard both lip and chin ; 

His linen collar labyrinthian set, 

Whose thousand double turnings never met: 

His sleeves half hid with elbow pinionings, 

As if he meant to fly with linen wings. 

But when I look, and cast mine eyes below. 

What monster meets mine eyes in human show ? 

So slender waist with such an abbot's loin. 

Did never sober nature sure conjoin. 

Lik'st a straw scare-crow in the new-sown field, 

Rear'd on some stick, the tender corn to shield. 

^ That is, to them who have never seen the time when, &c. 

2 A proverbial phrase for going without a dinner, arising from the circum- 
stance of St. Paul's, where Duke Humphrey's tomb was supposed to stand, 
being the common resort of loungers who had not dined. 

2 Long or low. * " Cockers" were a kind of rustic high shoes or half boots. 



1649-1660.] HALL. 177 

Or if that semblance suit not every deal, 
Like a broad shake-fork with a slender steel 

As a prose writer, Hall was known in his day as a most able champion 
in controversial theology, in which he was one of the antagonists of Milton, 
writing with great learning, as well as with a most excellent spirit, in favor 
of the established church. But his numerous tracts on this subject are now 
but little read. Not so, however, with his " Contemplations on the princi- 
pal Passages of the Holy Story," and his " Occasional Meditations." These 
are replete with fine thoughts, excellent morality and sterling piety. He has 
been styled the Christian Seneca, from his sententious manner of writing, 
and from the pecuUar resemblance of his "Meditations," to "Seneca's 
Morals." 



UPON OCCASION OF A RED-BREAST COMING INTO HIS CHAMBER. 

Pretty bird, how cheerfully dost thou sit and sing, and yet 
knowest not where thou art, nor where thou shalt make thy 
next meal ; and at night must shrowd thyself in a bush for 
lodging ! What a shame is it for me, that see before me so 
liberal provisions of my God, and find myself sit warm under 
my own roof, yet am ready to droop under a distrustful and 
unthankful dullness. Had I so litde certainty of my harbour 
and purveyance, how heardess should I be, how careful ; how 
litde list should I have to make music to thee or myself. Surely 
thou comest not hither without a Providence. God sent thee 
not so much to delight, as to shame me, but all in a conviction 
of my sullen unbelief, who, under more apparent means, am 
less cheerful and confident ; reason and faith have not done so 
much in me, as in thee mere instinct of nature ; want of fore- 
sight makes thee more merry, if not more happy here, than the 
foresight of better things maketh me. 

God, thy providence is not impaired by those powers 
thou hast given me above these brute things ; let not my greater 
helps hinder me from an holy security, and comfortable reli- 
ance on thee. 



UPON HEARING OF MUSIC BY NIGHT. 

How sweedy doth this music sound in this dead season ! In 
the day time it would not, it could not so much affect the ear. 
All harmonious sounds are advanced by a silent darkness; thus 
it is with the glad tidings of salvation ; the Gospel never sounds 
so sweet as in the night of preservation, or of our own private 
affliction ; it is ever the same, the difference is in our disposi- 
12 



178 HALL. [interregnum 

lion to receive it. God, whose praise it is to give songs in 
the night, make my prosperity conscionable, and my crosses 
cheerful. 



UPON THE SIGHT OF A GREAT LIBRARY. 

What a world of wit is here packed up together ! I know 
not whether this sight doth more dismay or comfort me ; it 
dismays me to think, that here is so much that I cannot know ; 
it comforts me to think that this variety yields so good helps 
to kno^v what I should. There is no truer word than that of 
Solomon — there is no end of making many books ; this sight 
verifies it ; there is no end ; indeed, it were pity there should ; 
God hath given to man a busy soul ; the agitation whereof can- 
not but, through time and experience, work out many hidden 
truths : to suppress these would be no other than injurious to 
mankind ; whose minds, like unto so many candles, should be 
kindled by each other : the thoughts of our deliberation are 
most accurate; these we vent into our papers. What an hap- 
piness is it, that, without all offence of necromancy, I may here 
call up any of the ancient worthies of learning, whether human 
or divine, and confer with them of all my doubts ! that I can 
at pleasure summon whole synods of reverend fathers, and acute 
doctors from all the coasts of the earth, to give their well-studied 
judgments in all points of question which I propose ! Neither 
can I cast my eye casually upon any of these silent masters, 
but I must learn somewhat : it is a wantonness to complain of 
choice. 



THE HAPPY MAN, 

That hath learned to read himself more than all books ; and 
hath so taken out this lesson that he can never forget it; that 
knows the world, and cares not for it ; that after many traverses 
of thoughts, is grown to know what he may trust to, and stands 
now equally armed for all events ; that hath got the mastery at 
home, so as he can cross his will without a mutiny, and so please 
it, that he makes it not a wanton : that in earthly things wishes 
no more than nature ; in spiritual, is ever graciously ambitious ; 
that for his condition, stands on his own feet, not needing to lean 
upon the great; and so can frame his thoughts to his estate, that 
when he hath least, he cannot want, because he is as free from 
desire, as superfluity ; that he hath seasonably broken the head- 
strong restiness of prosperity, and can now manage it at pleasure. 



1649-1660.] HALL. 179 

Upon whom all smaller crosses light as hailstones upon a roof: 
and for the greater calamities, he can take them as tributes of 
life, and tokens of love ; and if his ship be tossed, yet is he sure 
his anchor is fast. If all the world were his, he could be no 
other than he is, no whit gladder of himself, no whit higher in 
his carriage, because he knows contentment is not in the things 
he hath, but in the mind that values them.' The powers of his 
resolution can either multiply, or subtract at pleasure. He 
can make his cottage a manor, or a palace when he lists ; and 
his homeclose a large dominion; his stained cloth, arras ; his 
earth, plate ; and can see state in the attendance of one servant : 
as one that hath learned a man's greatness or baseness is in 
himself; and in this he may even contest with the proud, that 
he thinks his own the best. Or if he must be outwardly great, 
he can but turn the other end of the glass, and make his stately 
manor a low and straight cottage ; and in all his costly furni- 
ture he can see not richness but use. He can see dross in the 
best metal, and earth through the best cloths : and in all his 
troop he can see himself his own servant. He lives quietly at 
home,^ out of the noise of the world, and loves to enjoy himself 
always, and sometimes his friend, and hath as full scope to his 
thoughts as to his eyes. He walks ever even in the midway 
betwixt hopes and fears, resolved to fear nothing but God, to 
hope for nothing but that which he must have. His strife is 
ever to redeem and not to spend time. It is his trade to do 
good, and to think of it as his recreation. He hath hands 
enough for himself and others, which are ever stretched forth 

1 Its no in titles nor in rank ; 
Its no in wealth, like Lon'on bank ; 

To purchase peace and rest; 
Its no in making muckle mair : 
Its no in books: its no in lear, 

To make us truly blest: 
If happiness hae not her seat 

And centre in the breast, 
We may be wise, or rich, or great, 
But never can be blest : 
Nae treasures, nor pleasures, 
Could make us happy lang; 
The heart ay's the part ay, 
That makes us right or wrang. Burns. 

2 I knew a man that had health and riches and several houses, all beautiful 
and ready furnished, and would often trouble himself and family to be remov- 
ing from one house to another : and being asked by a friend, " Why he re- 
moved so often from one house to another ?" replied, " It was to find content 
in some one of them." " Content," said his friend, " ever dwells in a meek 
and quiet soul." — Walton's Angler. 



180 HALL. I^CHARLES II. 

for beneficence, not for need. He walks cheerfully the way 
that God hath chalked, and never wishes it more wide, or more 
smooth. Those very temptations whereby he is foiled, strengthen 
him ; he comes forth crowned, and triumphing ont of the spiritual 
battles, and those scars that he hath, make him beautiful. His 
soul is every day dilated to receive that God in whom he is, 
and hath attained to love himself for God, and God for his own 
sake. His eyes stick so fast in heaven, that no earthly object 
can remove them; yea, his w^hole self is there before his time ; 
and sees with Stephen, and hears with Paul, and enjoys with 
Lazarus, the glory that he shall have ; and takes possession 
beforehand of his room amongst the saints ; and these heavenly 
contentments have so taken him up, that now he looks down 
displeasedly upon the earth, as the regions of his sorrow and 
banishment; yet joying more in hope than troubled with the 
sense of evil, he holds it no great matter to live, and greatest 
business to die : and is so well acquainted with his last guest, 
that he fears no unkindness from him ; neither makes he any 
other of dying, than of walking home when he is abroad, or of 
going to bed when he is weary of the day. He is well pro- 
vided for both worlds, and is sure of peace here, of glorj' here- 
after ; and therefore hath a light heart and a cheerful face. All 
his fellow creatures rejoice to serve him ; his betters, the angels, 
love to observe him ; God himself takes pleasure to converse 
with him ; and hath sainted him before his death, and in his 
death crowned him. 

THE PLEASURE OF STUDY AND COXTEMPLATIOX. 

I can wonder at nothing more than how a man can be idle ; 
Imt of all others, a scholar ; in so many improvements of reason, 
in such sweetness of knowledge, in such variety of studies, in 
such importunity of thoughts : other artizans do but practise, 
we still learn ; others run still in the same gyre to weariness, 
to satiety; our choice is infinite; other labors require recrea- 
tions ; our very labor recreates our sports ; we can never want 
either somewhat to do, or somewhat that we would do. How 
numberless are the volumes which men have written of arts, of 
tongues ! How endless is that volume which God hath written 
of the world ! wherein every creature is a letter ; every day a 
new page. Who can be weary of either of these ? To find 
wit in poetry; in philosophy, profoundness ; in mathematics, 
acuteness ; in history, wonder of events ; in oratory, sweet 
eloquence; in divinity, supernatural light, and hol}^ devotion; 



1660-1685.] FULLER. 181 

as so many rich metals in their proper mines ; whom would it 
not ravish with delight ? After all these, let us but open our 
eyes, we cannot look beside a lesson, in this universal book of 
our Maker, worth our study, worth taking out. What creature 
hath not his miracle ? what event doth not challenge his ob- 
servation ? How many busy tongues chase away good hours 
in pleasant chat, and complain of the haste of night ! What 
ingenious mind can be sooner weary of talking with learned 
authors, the most harmless and sweetest companions ? Let the 
world contemn us; while we have these delights we cannot 
envy them ; we cannot wish ourselves other than we are. Be- 
sides, the way to all other contentments is troublesome ; the 
only recompense is in the end. But very search of knowledge 
is delightsome. Study itself is our life ; from which we would 
not be barred for a world. How much sweeter then is the 
fruit of study, the conscience of knowledge ? In comparison 
whereof the soul that hath once tasted it, easily contemns all 
human comforts.' 



THOMAS FULLER, 160S— 166L 

A CONSPICUOUS place in the prose literature of our language is due to the 
historian and divine, Thomas Fuller. He was the son of a clergyman of 
the same name, and was born in 1608 at Aldwinkle in Northamptonshire, 
the native place of Dryden. At the early age of twelve, he was sent to 
Queen's college, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself for his attain- 
ments, and on entering hfe as a preacher in that city, he acquired the 
greatest popularity. He afterwards passed through a rapid succession of 
promotions, until he acquired (1641) the lectureship of the Savoy Church 
in London. To show his fidelity to the royal cause, he procured in 1643, a 
nomination as chaplain to the royal army. When the heat of the war was 
passed he returned to London, and became lecturer at St. Bride's church. 
Subsequently he occupied other situations in the church of England, and at 
the Restoration (1660) he was chosen chaplain extraordinary to the king. 
The next year he was prematurely cut off by fever at the age of fifty-three. 

The works of Fuller are very numerous : the chief of which are the fol- 
lowing: 1. " History of the Worthies of England," one of the earliest bio- 
graphical works in the language ; a strange mixture of topography, biography, 

* How charming is divine pliilosophy! 
Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose; 
But musical as is Apollo's lute, 
And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, 
Where no crude surfeit reigns. Milton''s Comus. 



182 FULLER. [cHARLES II. 

and popular antiquities. 2. "The Holy and Profane State," the former 
proposing examples for imitation, the latter their opposiies, for our abhor- 
rence. Each contains characters in every department of life, as, "the 
father," "husband," "soldier," "divine," &c. ; lives of eminent persons, 
as illustrative of these characters, and general essays. 3. " The History 
of the Holy War," and "The Church History of Britain." There are 
specimens of historical painting in these works that have perhaps never 
been excelled, 4. "Good Thoughts in Bad Times." 5. "A Pisgah- 
sight of Palestine and the Confines thereof; with the History of the Old 
and New Testament acted thereon." Besides these he published a large 
number of tracts and sermons on various subjects. 

Fuller was indeed an extraordinary man, " If ever there was an amusing 
writer in this world, Thomas Fuller was one. There was in him a combi- 
nation of those qualities which minister to our entertainment, such as few 
have ever possessed in an equal degree. He was, first of all, a man of 
multifarious reading ; of great and digested knowledge, which an extraordi- 
nary retentiveness of memory preserved ever ready for use, and considerable 
accuracy of judgment enabled him successfully to apply. So well does he 
vary his treasures of memory and observation, so judiciously does he inter- 
weave his anecdotes, quotations, and remarks, that it is impossible to con- 
ceive a more delightful chequer work of acute thought and apposite illustra- 
tion, of original and extracted sentiment, than is presented in his works." ^ 



MISCELLANEOUS APHORISMS. 

Know, next religion, there is nothing accomplisheth a man 
more than learning. Learning in a lord is as a diamond in 
gold. 

He must rise early, yea, not at all go to bed, who will have 
every one's good word. 

He needs strong arms who is to swim against the stream. 

He that falls into sin is a man ; that grieves at it may be a 
saint ; that boasteth of it is a devil. 

Tt is hard for one of base parentage to personate a king with- 
out overacting his part. 

Charity's eyes should be open as well as her hands. Surely 
King Edward the Sixth was as truly charitable in granting 
Bridewell for the punishment of sturdy rogues, as in giving St. 
Thomas's Hospital for the relief of the poor. 

The Pope knows he can catch no fish if the waters are clear. 

The Cardinals' eyes in the court of Rome were old and dim ; 
and therefore the glass, wherein they see anything, must be 
well silvered. 

* See a very interesting article on Fuller in the Retrospective Review, vol. 
iii. p. 50. 



1660-1685.] FULLER. 183 

Many wish that the tree may be felled, who hope to gather 
chips by the fall. 

The Holy Ghost came down, not in the shape of a vulture, 
but in the form of a dove. 

Gravity is the ballast of the soul. 

Learning hath gained most by those books by which the 
printers have lost. 

He shall be immortal who liveth till he be stoned by one 
without fault. 

It is the worst clandestine marriage when God is not invited 
to it. 

Deceive not thyself by over-expecting happiness in the mar- 
ried state. Look not therein for contentment greater than God 
will give, or a creature in this world can receive, namely, to be 
free from all inconveniences. Marriage is not like the hill 
Olympus, wholly clear, without clouds. Remember the night- 
ingales, which sing only some months in the spring, but com- 
monly are silent when they have hatched their eggs, as if their 
mirth were turned into care for their young ones. 

Neither choose all, nor not at all for beauty. They tell us of 
a floating island in Scotland ; but sure no wise pilot will cast 
anchor there. 

Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl- 
chain of all virtues. 



There is scarce any profession in the commonwealth 
more necessary, which is so slightly performed. The reasons 
whereof I conceive to be these : — First, young scholars make 
this calling their refuge; yea, perchance, before they have 
taken any degree in the university, commence schoolmasters 
in the country, as if nothing else were required to set up this 
profession but only a rod and a ferula. Secondly, others who 
are able, use it only as a passage to better preferment, to patch 
the rents in their present fortune, till they can provide a new 

^ The remarks of Fuller on this subject are most admirable. How little 
discrimination parents often evince in placing their children at school ; and 
how many are there who " set up school," as the phrase is, without any 
suitable preparation or qualifications for the responsible duty. It is humili- 
ating to reflect how often it is assumed merely as the last resort; and how 
many parents will place a son, and still oftener a daughter under the direc- 
tion of a person who, for mental endowments, would not bear a comparison 
with the majority of freshmen in our best colleges. What an influence, for 
all time, must a master exert, and what an influence for eternity may he 
exert upon those committed to his instruction. 



184 FULLER. [cHARLES II. 

one, and betake themselves to some more gainful calling. 
Thirdly, they are disheartened from doing their best with the 
miserable reward which in some places they receive, being 
masters to their children and slaves to their parents. Fourthly, 
being grown rich they grow negligent, and scorn to touch the 
school but by the proxy of the usher. But see how well our 
schoolmaster behaves himself. 

His genius inclines him with delight to his profession. God, 
of his goodness, hath fitted several men for several callings, that 
the necessity of church and state, in all conditions, may be pro- 
vided for. And thus God mouldeth some for a schoolmaster's 
life, undertaking it with desire and delight, and discharging it 
with dexterity and happy success. 

He studieth his scholars' natures as carefully as they their 
books ; and ranks their dispositions into several forms. And 
though it may seem difficult for him in a great school to de- 
scend to all particulars, yet experienced schoolmasters may 
quickly make a grammar of boys' natures. 

He is able, diligent, and methodical in his teaching; not 
leading them rather in a circle than forwards. He minces his 
precepts for children to swallow, hanging clogs on the nimble- 
ness of his own soul, that his scholars may go along with him. 

He is moderate in inflicting deserved correction. Many a 
schoolmaster better ansvvereth the uRme paidotribes^ than paid- 
agogos,^ rather tearing his scholars' flesh with whipping than 
giving them good education. No wonder if his scholars hate 
the muses, being presented unto them in the shapes of fiends 
and furies. 

Such an Orbilius mars more scholars than he makes. Their 
tyranny hath caused many tongues to stammer which spake 
plain by nature, and whose stuttering at first was nothing else 
but fears quavering on their speech at their master's presence. 
And whose mauling them about their heads hath dulled those 
who in quickness exceeded their master. 

To conclude, let this, amongst other motives, make school- 
masters careful in their place — that the eminences of their 
scholars have commended the memories of their schoolmasters 
to posterity.'^ 

1 Boy-beater. 2 Boy-teacher. 

= How beautifully the historian Gibbon expresses the obligations due from 
a scholar, to a faithful and competent teacher: "The expression of gratitude 
is a virtue and a pleasure : a liberal mind will delight to cherish and cele- 
brate the memory of its parents, and the teachers of science are the parents of 
the mind.'' Memoirs, Chap. iii. 



1G60-1685.J FULLER. 185 



THE GOOD WIFE. 

She commandeth her husband in any equal matter, by con- 
stant obeying him. 

She never crosseth her husband in the spring-tide of his 
anger, but stays till it be ebbing-water. Surely men, contrary 
to iron, are worst to be wrought upon when they are hot. 

Her clothes are rather comely than costly, and she makes 
plain cloth to be velvet by her handsome wearing it. 

Her husband's secrets she will not divulge : especially she 
is careful to conceal his infirmities. 

In her husband's absence she is wife and deputy husband, 
which makes her double the files of her diligence. At his 
return he finds all things so well, that he wonders to see him- 
self at home when he was abroad.' 

Her children, though many in number, are none in noise, 
steering them with a look whither she listeth. 

The heaviest work of her servants she maketh light, by 
orderly and seasonably enjoining it. 

In her husband's sickness she feels more grief than she 
shows. 

THE GOOD SEA CAPTAIN. 

Conceive him now in a man of war, with his letters of 
marque, victualled, and appointed. 

The more power he hath, the more careful he is not to 
abuse it. Indeed a sea captain is a king in the island of a 
ship, supreme judge, above all appeal, in causes civil and 
criminal, and is seldom brought to an account on land, for 
injuries done to his own men at sea. 

He is careful in observing the Lord's day. He hath a watch 
in his heart, though no bells in a steeple to proclaim that day 
by ringing to prayers. 

He is as pious and thankful when a tempest is past, as de- 

' In Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy there are twelve reasons in favor of 
marriage, of which the six first are as follows: — 

1. Hast thou means? Thou hast one to keep and increase it. 

2. Hast none ? Thou hast one to help to get it. 

3. Art in prosperity? Tiiine happiness is doubled. 

4. Art in Adversity ? She'll comfort, assist, bear a part of thy burden, to 

make it more tolerable. 

5. Art at home ? She'll drive away melancholy. 

6. Art abroad ? She looks after thee, going from home, wishes for thee in 

thine absence, and joyfully welcomes thy return. 



186 FULLER. [cHARLES II. 

vout when 'tis present; not clamorous to receive mercies, and 
tongue-tied to return thanks. Escaping many dangers makes 
him not presumptuous to run into them. 

In taking a prize he most prizeth the men's lives whom he 
takes ; though some of them may chance to be negroes or 
savages. "Tis the custom of some to cast them overboard, and 
there's an end of them: for the dumb fishes will tell no tales. 
But the murderer is not so soon drowned as the man. What, 
is a brother of false blood no kin? a savage hath God to his 
father by creation, though not the church to his mother, and 
God will revenge his innocent blood. But our captain counts 
the image of God, nevertheless his image cut in ebony as if 
done in ivory.' 

In dividing the gains, he wrongs no one who took pains to 
get them : not shifting off his poor mariners with nothing. 

In time of peace he quietly returns home. 

His voyages are not only for profit, but some for honor and 
knowledge.^ 

He daily sees, and duly considers God's wonders in the deep. 

or TRAVELLING. 

Travel not early before thy judgment be risen ; lest thou ob- 
servest rather shows than substance. 

Get the language (in part), without which key thou shalt 
unlock little of moment. 

Know most of the rooms of thy native country before thou 
goest over the threshold thereof. 

Travel not beyond the Alps. Mr. Ascham did thank God 
that he was but nine days in Italy, wherein he saw in one city 
(Venice) more liberty to sin, than in London he ever heard of 
in nine years.^ 

- " Is not this one of the earliest intercessions on behalf of the poor 
slaves ?" — Basil Mo?itagu. No ; the good Las Casas, more than a century 
before, thus addressed the Emperor Charles the Fifth: "It well becomes 
your majesty to banish so monstrous an oppression (slavery) from your king- 
doms in the beginning of your reign, that the Almighty may make it long and 
glorious:" and a Higher than all human authority proclaimed, fifteen hun- 
dred years before, " All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to 
you, do ye even so to them ;" which, if obeyed, would break every bond of 
oppression throughout the world. 

2 This is common to all professions : " I hold," says Lord Bacon, " that 
every man is a debtor to his profession, from the which, as men do of course 
seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor 
themselves by way of amends, to be a help and ornament thereunto." 

3 I was once in Italy myself; but I thank God my abode there was bat 



1660-1685.] FULLER. 187 

Be wise in choosing objects, diligent in marking, careful in 
remembering of them. Yet herein men much follow their own 
humors. One asked a barber who never before had been at the 
court, what he saw there? "0," said he, "the king was ex- 
cellently well trimmed!" 

Labor to distil and unite into thyself the scattered perfec- 
tions of several nations. Many weed foreign countries, bring- 
ing home Dutch drunkenness, Spanish pride, French wanton- 
ness, and Italian Atheism ; as for the good herbs, Dutch 
industry, Spanish loyalty, French courtesy, and Italian fru- 
gality, these they leave behind them; others bring home just 
nothing ; and, because they singled not themselves from their 
countrymen, though some years beyond sea, were never out of 
England. 

OF MEMORY. 

It is the treasure-house of the mind, wherein the monuments 
thereof are kept and preserved. Plato makes it the mother of 
the Muses. Aristotle sets it in one degree further, making ex- 
perience the mother of arts, memory the parent of experience. 
Philosophers place it in the rear of the head ; and it seems the 
mine of memory lies there, because there men naturally dig for 
it, scratching it when they are at a loss. This again is two- 
fold ; one, the simple retention of things ; the other, a regain- 
ing them when forgotten. 

Artificial memory is rather a trick than an art, and more for 
the gain of the teacher than profit of the learners. Like the 
tossing of a pike, which is no part of the postures and motions 
thereof, and is rather for ostentation than use, to show the 
strength and nimbleness of the arm, and is often used by wan- 
dering soldiers, as an introduction to beg. Understand it of 
the artificial rules which at this day are delivered by memory 
mountebanks ; for sure an art thereof may be made (wherein as 
yet the world is defective) and that no more destructive to 
natural memory than spectacles are to eyes, which girls in 

nine days ; and yet I saw in that little time in one city, more liberty to sin, 
than ever I heard tell of in our noble city of London in nine years. I saw, 
it was there as free to sin, not only without all punishment, but also without 
any man's marking, as it is free in the city of London, to choose without all 
blame, whether a man list to wear shoe or pantofle. And good cause why: 
for being unlike in truth of religion, they must needs be unlike in honesty of 
living. For their care and charge is, not to punish sin, not to amend man- 
ners, not to purge doctrine, but only to watch and oversee that Christ's true 
religion set no sure footing where the Pope has any jurisdiction. — Roger 

ASCHAM. 



188 HERRTCK. [cHARLES II. 

Holland wear from twelve years of age. But till this be found 
out, let us observe these plain rules. 

First, soundly infix in thy mind what thou desirest to re- 
member. What wonder is it if agitation of business jog that 
out of thy head, which was there rather tacked than fastened ? 
It is best knocking in the nail over night, and clinching it the 
next morning. 

Overburthen not thy memory to make so faithful a servant a 
slave. Remember, Atlas was weary. Have as much reason 
as a camel, to rise when thou hast thy full load. Memory, 
like a purse, if it be over full that it cannot shut, all will drop 
out of it; take heed of a gluttonous curiosity to feed on many 
things, lest the greediness of the appetite of thy memory spoil 
the digestion thereof. Beza's case was peculiar and memo- 
rable ; being above fourscore years of age, he perfectly could 
say by heart any Greek chapter in St. Paul's epistles, or any- 
thing else which he had learnt long before, but forgot whatso- 
ever was newly told him ; his memory, like an inn, retaining 
old guests, but having no room to entertain new. 

Marshal thy notions into a handsome method. One will 
carry twice more weight trussed and packed up in bundles, 
than when it lies untoward, flapping and hanging about his 
shoulders. Things orderly fardled up under heads are most 
portable. 

Adventure not all thy learning in one bottom, but divide it 
betwixt thy memory and thy notebooks. He that with Bias 
carries all his learning about him in his head, will utterly be 
beggared and bankrupt, if a violent disease, a merciless thief, 
should rob and strip him. I know some have a common- 
place against common-place-books, and yet perchance will 
privately make use of what they publicly declaim against. A 
common-place-book contains many notions in garrison, whence 
the owner may draw out an army into the field on competent 
warning. 



ROBERT HERRICK, 1591—1662. 

One of the most exquisite of the early English lyric poets, was Robert 
Herrick. But little is known of his life. His father was a goldsmith of 
London, and he was born in that city in 1591. He studied at Cambridge, 
and took orders in the established church, and obtained a place to preach in, 
in Devonshire, which he lost at the commencement of the civil wars. At 



1660-1685.] iiERRicK. 189 

the Restoration he was re-appointed to his vicarage, but died soon after- 
wards, in 1662. 

Abating some of the impurities of Herrick, we can fully join with an able 
critic in the Reirospeclive ReviewMn pronouncing him one of the very best of 
English lyric poets. "He is the most joyous and gladsome of bards ; sing- 
ing like the grass-hopper, as if he would never grow old. He is as fresh as 
the Spring, as blithe as the Summer, and as ripe as the Autumn. . . . His 
poems resemble a luxuriant meadow, full of king-cups and wild flowers, or 
a July firmament, sparkling with a myriad of stars. His fancy fed upon all 
the fair and sweet things of nature : it is redolent of roses and jessamine ; it 
is as light and airy as the thistle down, or the bubbles which laughing boys 
blow into the air, where they float in a waving line of beauty." 



TO DAFFODILS. 



Fair dafTodils. we weep to see 
You haste away so soon ; 
As yet the early-rising sun 
Has not attainVl his noon : 
Stay, stay, 

Until the hast'ning daj'- 
Has run 

But to the even-song ; 
And, having pray'd together, we 

Will go with you along ! 

"We have short time to stay, as you j 
We have as short a spring, 
As quick a growth to meet decay, 
As you, or any thing: 
We die, 

As your hours do; and dry 
Away 

Like to the summer's rain, 
Or as the pearls of morning dew 

Ne'er to be found again. 



TO PRIMROSES, FILLED WITH 3I0RNING DEW. 

Why do ye weep, sweet babes? Can tears 

Speak grief in you, 

Who were but born 

Just as the modest morn 

Teem'd her refreshing dew ? 

Alas ! you have not known that show'r 

That mars a flow'r; 

Nor felt th' unkind 

' Vol. V. page 156. Read also, in Drake's Literary Hours, some excellent 
remarks on our author. 



190 HERRICK. [CHARLES II. 

Breath of a blasting wind; 

Nor are ye worn with years ; 
Or warp'd, as we, 

Who think it strange to see 
Such pretty fiow'rs, hke to orphans young, 
To speak by tears before ye have a tongue. 

Speak, whimp'ring younghngs; and make known 
The reason why 
Ye droop, and weep. 
Is it for want of sleep ; 
Or childish lullaby ? 
Or, that ye have not seen as yet 
The violet? 
Or brought a kiss 
From that sweetheart to this? 
No, no ; this sorrow, shown 

By your tears shed, 
Would have this lecture read, 
That things of greatest, so of meanest worth, 
Conceiv'd with grief are, and with tears brought forth. 



TO BLOSSOMS. 

Fair pledges of a fruitful tree, 

Why do ye fall so fast? 

Your date is not so past, 
But you may stay yet here awhile 

To blush and gently smile, 
And go at last. 

What, were ye born to be 

An hour or half's delight, 
And so to bid good night? 

'Tis pity nature brought ye forth 
Merely to show your worth, 
And lose you quite. 

But you are lovely leaves, where we 
May read how soon things have 
Their end, though ne'er so brave : 

And after they have shown their pride, 
Like you, awhile, they glide 
Into the grave. 



HOW THE heart' S-EASE FIRST CAME. 

Frolic virgins once these were, 

Over-loving, living here ; 

Being here their ends denied. 

Ran for sweethearts mad, and died. 

Love, in pity of their tears, 

And their loss of blooming years, 



1060-1685.] HERRICK. 191 

For their restless here-spent hours, 
Gave them heart's ease turn'd to flow'rs. 



THE CAPTIVED BEE, OR THE LITTLE FILCHER. 

As Julia once a slumb'ring lay, 

It chanced a bee did fly that way, 

After a dew, or dew-lilce show'r, 

To tipple freely in a flow'r ; 

For some rich flow'r he took the lip 

Of Julia, and began to sip : 

But when he felt he suck'd from thence 

Honey, and in the quintessence. 

He drank so much he scarce could stir ; 

So Julia took the pilferer : 

And thus surpris'd, as filchers use, 

He thus began himself t' excuse : 

Sweet lady-flow'r ! I never brought 

Hither the least one thieving thought ; 

But taking those rare lips of your's 

For some fresh, fragrant, luscious flow'rs, 

I thought I might there take a taste. 

Where so much syrup ran at waste : 

Besides, know this, I never sting 

The flow'r that gives me nourishing; 

But with a kiss, or thanks, do pay 

For honey that I bear away. 

This said, he laid his little scrip 

Of honey 'fore her ladyship ; 

And told her, as some tears did fall. 

That, that he took, and that was all. 

At which she smil'd ; and bade him go 

And take his bag ; but thus much know, 

When next he came a pilf 'ring so. 

He should from her full lips derive 

Honey enough to fill his hive. 



THE NIGHT-PIECE. TO JULIA. 

Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee, 
The shooting stars attend thee, 
And the elves also. 
Whose little eyes glow 
Like sparks of fire, befriend thee ! 

No will-o'-th'-wisp mislight thee. 
Nor snake nor slow- worm bite thee ; 

But on, on thy way, 

Not making a stay, 
Since ghost there's none to affright thee ! 

Let not the dark thee cumber ; 
What though the moon does slumber, 



192 HERRICK. [CHARLES II. 

The stars of the night 
Will lend thee their light, 
Like tapers clear without number! 

Then, Juha, let me woo thee, 
Thus, thus to come unto me: 

And, when I shall meet 

Thy silv"ry feet, 
My soul I'll pour into thee! 



THE PRIMROSE. 

Ask me why I send you here 
This sweet infanta of the year ? 
Ask me why I send to you 
This primrose, thus bepearl'd with dew 1 
I ■will whisper to your ears, 
<^he sweets of love are mix'd with tears.) 
Ask me why this flow'r does show "^ 
So yellow green, and sickly too 1 
Ask me why the stalk is weak 
And bending, yet it doth not break? 
I will answer, these discover 
What fainting hopes are in a lover. 



UPON A CHILD THAT DIED. 

Here she lies, a pretty bud, 
Lately made of flesh and blood ; 
Who as soon fell fast asleep, 
As her little eyes did peep. 
Give her stre wings, but not stir 
The earth that lightlv covers her ! 



EPITAPH UPON A CHILD. 

Virgins promis'd, when I died, 
That they would, each primrose-tide, 
Duly morn and ev'ning come, 
And with flowers dress my tomb : 
Having promis'd, pay your debts, 
Maids, and here strew \'iolets. 



UPON A MAID. 



Here she Hes, in beds of spice, 
Fair as Eve in paradise ; 
For her beauty it was such, 
Poets could not praise too much. 



1660-1G85.] TAYLOR. 193 

Virgins, come, and in a ring 
Her supremest requiem sing ; 
Then depart, but see ye tread 
Lightly, Hghtly o'er the dead. 



JEREMY TAYLOR, 1602— 1G67. 

Jeremy Taylor, who for learning, eloquence, imagination, and piety, 
stands among the very first of English divines, was the son of a barber in 
Cambridge. He was born about the year 1602, and at the age of thirteen 
entered the University of his native place. A short time after taking his 
degree, he was elected, by the interest of Archbishop Laud, fellow of All- 
Souls College, Oxford. He became chaplain to Laud, who procured for him 
the rectory of Uppington in Rutlandshire, where he settled in 1640. In 
1642 he was created D.D, at Oxford. In 1644, while accompanying the 
royal army as chaplain, he was taken prisoner by the parliamentary forces, 
in the battle fought before the castle of Cardigan, in Wales. Being soon 
released, he resolved to continue in Wales, and, having established a school 
in the county of Caermarthen, he there waited calmly the issue of events. 
He thus gives, in his own felicitous style, the following picturesque account 
of his retirement. "In the great storm which dashed the vessel of the 
church all in pieces, I had been cast on the coast of Wales, and, in a Uttle 
boat, thought to have enjoyed that rest and quietness which in England, in 
a far greater, I could not hope for. Here I cast anchor, and thinking to 
ride safely, the storm followed me with so impetuous violence, that it broke 
a cable, and I lost my anchor : and, but that He that stilleth the raging of 
the sea, and the noise of his waves, and the madness of the people, had pro- 
vided a plank for me, I had been lost to all the opportunities of content or 
study : but I know not whether I have been preserved more by the courte- 
sies of my friends, or the gentleness and mercies of a noble enemy." ^ 

After continuing some years in this solitude, he lost his three sons in the 
short space of two or three months. This most afflicting calamity caused 
him to go to London, where he administered, though in circumstances of 
great danger, to a private congregation of loyalists. At the Restoration he 
was made Bishop of Down and Connor, in Ireland, and subsequently was 
elected vice-chancellor of the University of Dublin, which office he retained 
to his death, 1667. 

The writings of Bishop Taylor, which are numerous, are all of a theologi- 
cal character. His greatest work, perhaps, is his " Liberty of Prophesying." 
By prophesying, he means preaching or expounding. The object of this is 
to show the unreasonableness of prescribing to other men's faith, and the ini- 
quity of persecuting for difference of opinion. It has been justly described as, 
"perhaps of all Taylor's writings, that which shows him farthest in advance 

' A most noble and just tribute to the Republican cause. 



194 TAYLOR. [cHARLES II. 

of the age in which he Uved, and of the ecclesiastical system in which he 
had been reared ; as the first distinct and avowed defence of toleration which 
had been ventured on in England, perhaps in Christendom." The most 
popular, however, of his works is his " Rule and Exercises of Holy Living 
and Dying," which contains numerous passages of singular beauty and 
truth. A writer in the Edinburgh Review remarks, that in one of Taylor's 
" prose folios, there is more fine fancy and original imagery — more brilliant 
conceptions and glowing expressions — more new figures and new application 
of old figures, — more, in short, of the body, and soul of poetry, than in all the 
odes and epics that have since been produced in Europe." 



ON PRAYER. 

Prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our thoughts, 
the evenness of recollection, the seat of meditation, the rest of 
our cares, and the calm of our tempest. Prayer is the issue of 
a quiet mind, of untroubled thoughts, it is the daughter of charity, 
and the sister of meekness ; and he that prays to God with an 
angry, that is, with a troubled and discomposed spirit, is like 
him that retires into a battle to meditate, and sets up his closet 
in the out quarters of an army. Anger is a perfect alienation 
of the mind from prayer, and therefore is contrary to that 
attention, which presents our prayers in a right line to God. 
For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and 
soaring upwards, singing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven, 
and climb over the clouds ; but the poor bird was beaten back 
with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made 
irregular and unconstant, descending more at every breath of 
the tempest, than it could recover by the libration and frequent 
weighing of his wings ; till the little creature was forced to sit 
down and pant, and stay till the storm was over, and then it 
made a prosperous flight, and did rise and sing as if it had 
learned music and motion from an angel, as he passed some- 
times through the air about his ministries here below: so is 
the prayer of a good man. 

ON TOLERATION. 

Any zeal is proper for religion but the zeal of the sword and 
the zeal of anger: this is the bitterness of zeal, and it is a cer- 
tain temptation to every man against his duty ; for if the sword 
turns preacher, and dictates propositions by empire instead of 
arguments, and engraves them in men's hearts with a poniard, 
that it shall be death to believe what I innocently and ignorantly 
am persuaded of, it must needs be unsafe to try the spirits, to 



1660-1685.] TAYLOR. 195 

try all things, to make inquiry ; and yet, without this liberty, 
no man can justify himself before God or man, nor confidently 
say that his religion is best. This is inordination of zeal ; for 
Christ, by reproving *S'^. Peter drawing his sword even in the 
cause of Christ, for his sacred and yet injured person, teaches 
us not to use the sword, though in the cause of God, or for 
God himself. 

When Abraham sat at his tent door, according to his custom, 
waiting to entertain strangers, he espied an old man stooping 
and leaning on his staff, weary with age and travail, coming 
towards him, who was a hundred years of age. He received 
him kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, caused him to 
sit down ; but observing that the old man eat, and prayed not, 
nor begged for a blessing on his meat, he asked him why he 
did not worship the God of heaven. The old man told him, 
that he worshipped the fire only, and acknowledged no other 
God. At which answer Abraham grew so zealously angry, 
that he thrust the old man out of his tent, and exposed him to 
all the evils of the night, and an unguarded condition. When 
the old man was gone, God called to Abraham, and asked him 
where the stranger was ? He replied, I thrust him away be- 
cause he did not worship thee. God answered him, 1 have 
suffered him these hundred years, although he dishonored me ; 
and couldst not thou endure him one night? 

ON CONTENT. 

Since all the evil in the world consists in the disagreeing be- 
tween the object and the appetite, as when a man hath what he 
desires not, or desires what he hath not, or desires amiss, he 
that composes his spirit to the present accident hath variety 
of instances for his virtue, but none to trouble him, because his 
desires enlarge not beyond his present fortune : and a wise man 
is placed in the variety of chances, like the nave or centre of a 
wheel in the midst of all the circumvolutions and changes of 
posture, without violence or change, save that it turns gently in 
compliance with its changed parts, and is indifferent which part 
is up, and which is down ; for there is some virtue or other to 
be exercised whatever happens — either patience or thanksgiving, 
love or fear, moderation or humility, charity or contentedness. 

It conduces much to our content, if we pass by those things 
which happen to our trouble, and consider that which is pleasing 
and prosperous; that by the representation of the better, the 
worse may be blotted out. 



196 TAYLOR. [cHARLES II. 

It may be thou art entered into the cloud which will bring a 
gentle shower to refresh thy sorrows. 

I am fallen into the hands of publicans and sequestrators, and 
they have taken all from me : what now ? let me look about 
me. They have left me the sun and moon, fire and water, a 
loving wife, and many friends to pity me, and some to relieve 
me, and I can still discourse ; and, unless I list, they have not 
taken away my merry countenance, and my cheerful spirit, and 
a good conscience ; they still have left me the providence of 
God, and all the promises of the Gospel, and my religion, and 
my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them too: and still I 
sleep and digest, I eat and drink, I read and meditate, I can 
walk in my neighbor's pleasant fields, and see the varieties of 
natural beauties, and delight in all that in which God delights, 
that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the whole creation, and in God 
himself.' 

ON CGVETOUSNESS. 

Covetousness swells the principal to no purpose, and lessens 
the use to all purposes ; disturbing the order of nature, and the 
designs of God ; making money not to be the instrument of 
exchange or charity, nor corn to feed himself or the poor, nor 
wool to clothe himself or his brother, nor wine to refresh the 
sadness of the afflicted, nor oil to make his own countenance 
cheerful ; but all these to look upon, and to tell over, and to 
take accounts by, and make himself considerable, and wondered 
at by fools, that while he lives he may be called rich, and when 
he dies may be accounted miserable. It teaches men to be 
cruel and crafty, industrious and evil, full of care and malice ; 
and, after all this, it is for no good to itself, for it dares not 
spend those heaps of treasure which it snatched. 

* Yet nature's charms, the hills and woods, 

The sweeping vales, and foaming floods, 

Are free alike to all. Burns. 

I care not. Fortune, what you me deny, 

You cannot rob me of free nature's grace, 
You cannot shut the windows of the sky, 

Through which Aurora shows her bright'ning face. 
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace, 

The woods and lawns by living stream at eve ; 
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, 
And I their toys to the great children leave; 
Of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave. Thomson. 



1660-1685.] TAYLOR. 197 

ADVERSITY.' 

All is well as long as the sun shines, and the fair breath of 
heaven gently wafts us to our own purposes. But if you will 
try the excellency, and feel the work of faith, place the man in 
a persecution ; let him ride in a storm, let his bones be broken 
with sorrow, and his eyes loosened witli sickness, let his bread 
be dipped with tears, and all the daughters of music be brought 
low ; let us come to sit upon the margin of our grave, and let 
a tyrant lean hard upon our fortunes, and dwell upon our wrong; 
let the storm arise, and the keels toss till the cordage crack, or 
that all our hopes bulge under us, and descend into the hollow- 
ness of sad misfortunes. 



ON THE MISERIES OF A MAN S LIFE. 

How few men in the world are prosperous! What an infi- 
nite number of slaves and beggars, of persecuted and oppressed 
people, fill all corners of the earth with groans, and heaven itself 
with weeping, prayers and sad remembrances ! If we could, 
from one of the battlements of heaven, espy how many men 
and women at this time lie fainting and dying for want of 
bread ; how many young men are hewn down by the sword 
of war; how many poor orphans are now weeping over the 
graves of their father, by whose life they were enabled to eat; 
if we could but hear how mariners and passengers are at this 
present in a storm, and shriek out because their keel dashes 
against a rock or bulges under them ; how many people there 

'■ In the reproof of chance 

Lies the true proof of men. The sea being smooth, 
How many shallow bauble boats dare sail 
Upon her patient breast, making their way 
With those of nobler bulk ! 
But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage 
The gentle Thetis, and anon, behold, 
The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cuts, 
Bounding between the two moist elements, 
Like Perseus' horse: where's then the saucy boat, 
Whose weak-untimber'd sides but even now 
Co-rival'd greatness? Troilus and Cressida. 

See Bacon's beautiful Essay on Adversity, where he says — 
" But to speak in a mean, the virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue 
of adversity is fortitude, which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Pros- 
perity is the blessing of the Old Testament, Adversity is the blessing of the 
New, which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of 
God's favor. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, 
you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols." 



198 TAYLOR. [CHARLES II. 

are that weep with want, and are mad with oppression, or are 
desperate by too quick a sense of constant infelicity ; in all 
reason we should be glad to be out of the noise and participa- 
tion of so many evils. This is a place of sorrows and tears, 
of so great evils and a constant calamity : let us remove from 
hence, at least, in affections and preparation of mind. 



WHAT IS LIFE. 

Some are called at age at fourteen, some at one and twenty, 
some never ; but all men late enough, for the life of a man 
comes upon him slowly and insensibly. But as when the sun 
approaching towards the gates of morning, he first opens a little 
eye of heaven, and sends away the spirits of darkness, and 
gives light to the cock, and calls up the lark to mattens, and, by 
and by, gilds the fringes of a cloud, and peeps over the eastern 
hills, thrusting out his golden horns, like those which decked 
the brows of Moses when he was forced to wear a veil, because 
himself had seen the face of God ; and still, while a man tells 
the story, the sun gets up higher, till he shows a fair face and 
a full light, and then he shines one whole day, under a cloud 
often, and sometimes weeping great and little showers, and sets 
quickly : so is a man's reason and his life. 

It is a mighty change that is made by the death of every 
person, and it is visible to us who are alive. Reckon but from 
the sprightfulness of youth, the fair cheeks and the full eyes of 
childhood, from the vigorousness and strong flexure of the joints 
of five and twenty, to the hollowness and dead paleness, to the 
loathsomeness and horror of a three-days burial, and we shall 
perceive the distance to be very great and very strange. But 
so I have seen a rose nev/ly springing from the clefts of its 
hood, and at first it was fair as the morning, and full with the 
dew of heaven, as a lamb's fleece : but when a ruder breath 
had forced open its virgin modesty, and dismantled its too 
youthful and unripe retirements, it began to put on darkness, 
and to decline to softness, and the symptoms of a sickly age : it 
bowed the head, and broke its stalk, and at night, having lost 
some of its leaves and all its beauty, it fell into the portion of 
weeds and worn-out faces. The same is the portion of every 
man and every woman ; the heritage of worms and serpents, 
rottenness and cold dishonour. 



1660-1685.] TAYLOR. 199 



THE STORY OF THE EPHESIAN MATRON. 

The Ephesian woman, that the soldier told of in Petronius, 
was the talk of all the town, and the rarest example of a dear 
affection to her husband. She descended with the corpse into 
the vault, and there being attended with her maiden, resolved 
to weep to death, or die with famine or a distempered sorrow : 
from which resolution, nor his, nor her friends, nor the reve- 
rence of the principal citizens, who used the entreaties of their 
charity and their power, could dissuade her. But a soldier 
that watched seven dead bodies hanging upon the trees just 
over against this monument, crept in, and a while stared upon 
the silent and comely disorders of the sorrow : and having let 
the wonder awhile breathe out at each other's eyes, at last he 
fetched his supper and a botde of wine, with purpose to eat 
and drink, and still to feed himself with that sad prettiness. 
His pity and first draught of wine made him bold and curious 
to try if the maid would drink : who, having many hours since 
felt her resolution faint as her wearied body, took his kindness ; 
and the light returned into her eyes, and danced like boys in a 
festival : and fearing lest the pertinaciousness of her mistress' 
sorrows should cause her evil to revert, or her shame to ap- 
proach, assayed whether she would endure to hear an argument 
to persuade her to drink and live. The violent passion had 
laid all her spirits in wildness and dissolution, and the maid 
found them willing to be gathered into order at the arrest of 
any new object, being weary of the first, of which like leeches 
they had sucked their fill till they fell down and burst. The 
weeping woman took her cordial, and was not angry with her 
maid, and heard the soldier talk. And he was so pleased with 
the change, that he, who first loved the silence of the sorrow, 
was more in love with the music of her returning voice, espe- 
cially which himself had strung and put in tune. And the man 
began to talk amorously, and the woman's weak head and heart 
was soon possessed with a little wine, and grew gay, and talked 
and fell in love; and that very night, in the morning of her 
passion, in the grave of her husband, in the pomps of mourning, 
and in her funeral garments, married her new and stranger 
guest. For so the wild foragers of Lybia, being spent with 
heat, and dissolved by the too fond kisses of the sun, do melt 
with their common fires, and die with faintness, and descend 
with motions slow and unable to the little brooks that descend 
from heaven in the wilderness ; and when they drink, they re- 
turn into the vigour of a new life, and contract strange mar- 



200 COWLEY. [cHARLES II. 

riages. And so also was it in the cave at Ephesus : for by 
this time the soldier began to think it was fit he should return 
to his watch, and observe the dead bodies he had in charge ; 
but when he ascended from his mourning bridal chamber, he 
found that one of the bodies was stolen by the friends of the 
dead, and he was fallen into an evil condition, because by the 
laws of Ephesus, his body was to be fixed in the place of it. 
The poor man returns to his woman, cries out bitterly, and in 
her presence resolves to die to prevent his death, and in secret 
to prevent his shame. But now the woman's love was raging 
like her former sadness, and grew witty, and she comforted her 
soldier, and persuaded him to live, lest by losing him, who had 
brought her from death and a more grievous sorrow, she should 
return to her old solemnities of dying, and lose her honour for 
a dream, or the reputation of her constancy without the change 
and satisfaction of an enjoyed love. The man would fain have 
lived, if it had been possible, and she found out this way for 
him ; that he should take the body of her first husband, whose 
funeral she had so strangely mourned, and put it upon the gal- 
lows in place of the stolen thief. He did so, and escaped the 
present danger, to possess a love which might change as vio- 
lently as her grief had done. But so have I seen a crowd of 
disordered people rush violently and in heaps till their utmost 
border was restrained by a wall, or had spent the fury of the 
first fluctuation and watery progress, and by and by it returned 
to the contrary with the same earnestness, only because it was 
violent and ungoverned. A raging passion is this crowd, 
which, when it is not under discipline and the conduct of reason, 
and the proportions of temperate humanity, runs passionately 
the way it happens, and by and by as greedily to another side, 
being swayed by its own weight, and driven any whither by 
chance, in all its pursuits, having no rule but to do all it can, 
and spend itself in haste, and expire with some shame and 
much indecency. 



ABRAHAM COWLEY, 16IS— 1667. 

Abraham Cowley is the first, in order of time, of the hst of English 
poets, whose works were edited, and Uves written by Doctor Johnson. He 
was born in London in 1618. His father, who was a grocer by trade, died 
before his birth ; but his mother succeeded in procuring his admission into 
Westminster School as a kind's scholar, where he became distinguished 



1660-1685.] COWLEY. 201 

for correct classical scholarship. He very early imbibed a taste for poetry ; 
it is said from Spenser's Faerie Queene being thrown in his way ; and in his 
sixteenth year he published a colleciion of verses under the appropriate title 
o{ Poetical Blossoms. In 1636 he was elected a scholar of Trinity College, 
Cambridge, where he continued to reside till 1643, when he removed to 
Oxford. From this time he took a very active part in the royal cause, and 
was employed on some missions of trust ; and when, in the progress of the 
civil war, the queen was compelled to quit the kingdom, Cowley accompa 
nied her to France, and was of material assistance to her, in managing the 
secret correspondence between herself and her royal consort. 

In 1656 he returned to England, and soon after his arrival published an 
edition of his poems, containing most of those which now appear in his works. 
When the Restoration came, he naturally looked for some reward for his 
long services in the royal cause. But alas ! "how wretched is that poor man 
that hangs on princes' favors." Cowley was destined to much bitter disap- 
pointment. At length he obtained the lease of a farm at Chertsey, by which 
his income was raised to about £300 a year. But he did not live long to 
enjoy his retirement ; for taking a severe cold and fever by exposure, he 
died on July 28, 1667. 

At the time of his death, Cowley certainly ranked as the first poet in 
England, though the Comus of Milton and som.e of his exquisite minor 
poems had been published nearly thirty years before. But what could be 
expected of an age that was stamped with the licentiousness of such a court 
as that of Charles II. ? Still, though Cowley has nothing of the reputation 
he once had, he has sufficient merit to give him a considerable rank among 
British poets. Dr. Johnson says, "It may be affirmed that he brought to 
his poetic labors a mind replete with learning, and that his pages are embel- 
lished with all the ornaments which books could supply ; that he was the 
first who imparted to English numbers the enthusiasm of the greater ode, 
and the gayety of the less ; and that he was equally qualified for sprightly 
saUies, and for lofty flights." His poetical works are divided into four parts — 
"Miscellanies," "Love Verses," "Pindaric Odes," and the " Davidies, 
a heroical poem of the Troubles of David." Of all these his Anacreontics 
are the most natural and pleasing. 



A mighty pain to love it is, 

And 'tis a pain that pain to miss, 

But of all pain the greatest pain 

It is to love, but love in vain. 

Virtue now nor noble blood, 

Nor wit, by love is understood. 

Gold alone does passion move ! 

Gold monopolises love ! 

A curse on her and on the man 

Who this traffic first began ! 

A curse on him who found the ore ! 

A curse on him who digg'd the store ! 



202 COWLEY. [cHARLES II. 



A curse on him who did refine it! 
A curse on hini who first did coin it! 
A curse all curses else above 
On him who us'd it first in love! 
Gold begets in brethren hate; 
Gold, in families, debate ; 
Gold does friendship separate ; 
Gold does civil wars create. 
These the smallest harms of it ; 
Gold, alas ! does love beget. 



THE GRASSHOPPER. 

Happy insect, what can be 

In happiness compared to thee ? 

Fed with nourishment divine, 

The dewy morning's gentle wine ! 

Nature waits upon thee still, 

And thy verdant cup does fill ; 

'Tis fiU'd wherever thou dost tread, 

Nature selFs thy Ganymede. 

Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing, 

Happier than the happiest king! 

All the fields which thou dost see, 

All the plants belong to thee ; 

All that summer hours produce, 

Fertile made with early juice. 

Man for thee does so"w and plough ; 

Farmer he, and landlord thou ! 

Thou dost innocently enjoy; 

Nor does thy luxury destroy. 

The shepherd gladly heareth thee, 

More harmonious than he. 

Thee country hinds v/ith gladness hear, 

Prophet of the ripen'd year ! 

Thee Phosbus loves, and does inspire ; 

PhcEbus is himself thy sire. 

To thee, of all things upon earth, 

Life is no longer than thy mirth. 

Happy insect ! happy thou, 

Dost neither age nor winter know. 

But when thou'st drunk, and danc'd, and sung 

Thy fill, the flowery leaves among, 

(Voluptuous and wise withal, 

Epicurean animal!) 

Satiated with thy summer feast, 

Thou retir'st to endless rest. 

Cowley's prose essays are much better than his poetry. Dr. Johnson, 
in speaking of them, says, " His thoughts are natural, and his style has a 
smooth and placid equability, which has never yet obtained its due com- 



1660-1685.] COWLEY. 203 

mendation. Nothing is far-sought or hard- labored ; but all is easy without 
feebleness, and familiar without grossness:" and Dr. Drake, one of the 
most judicious of modern critics, remarks that " to Cowley we may justly 
ascribe the formation of a basis on which has since been constructed the 
present correct and admirable fabric of our language. His words are pure 
and well chosen, the collocation simple and perspicuous, and the members 
of his sentences distinct and harmonious." 



ON MYSELF. 

It is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of himself; 
it grates his own heart to say any thing of disparagement, and 
the reader's ears to hear any thing of praise from him. There 
is no danger from me of offending him in this kind ; neither 
my mind, nor my body, nor my fortune, allow me any mate- 
rials for that vanity. It is sufficient, for my own contentment, 
that they have preserved me from being scandalous, or remark- 
able on the defective side. As far as my memory can return 
back into my past life, before I knew or was capable of guess- 
ing what the world, or glories, or business of it were, the natu- 
ral affections of my soul gave a secret bent of aversion from 
them, as some plants are said to turn away from others, by an 
antipathy imperceptible to themselves, and inscrutable to man's 
understanding. Even when I was a very young boy at school, 
instead of running about on holidays, and playing with my fel- 
lows, I was wont to steal from them, and walk into the fields, 
either alone with a book, or with some one companion, if I 
could find any of the same temper. That I was then of the 
same mind as I am now (which, I confess, I wonder at myself), 
may appear at the latter end of an ode which I made when I 
was but thirteen years old, and which was then printed, with 
many other verses. The beginning of it is boyish ; but of this 
part which I here set down (if a very litQe were corrected), I 
should hardly now be much ashamed. 

This only gi-ant me, that my means may lie 
Too low for envy, for contempt too high. 

Some honour I would have, 
Not from great deeds, but good alone ; 
Tlr unknown are better than ill-known. 

Rumour can ope the grave: 
Acquaintance I Avould liave ; but when 't depends 
Not on the number, but the choice of friends. 

Books should, not business, entertain the light, 
And sleep, as undisturb'd as death, the night. 



204 COWLEY. [cHARLES II. 

My house a cottage, more 
Than palace, and should fitting be 
For all my use, no luxury. 

My garden painted o'er 
With Nature's hand, not Art's ; and pleasures yield, 
Horace might envy in his Sabine field. 

Thus would I double my life's fading space, 
For he that runs it well, twice runs his race. 

And in this true delight. 
These unbought sports, that happy state, 
I would not fear nor wish my fate. 

But boldly say each night, 
To-morrow let my sun his beams display, 
Or in clouds hide them; I have liv'd to-daj-. 

You may see by it I was even then acquainted with the poets 
(for the conclusion is taken out of Horace) ; and perhaps it was 
the immature and immoderate love of them which stamped first, 
or rather engraved, tlie characters in me. They were like let- 
ters cut in the bark of a young tree, which, with the tree, still 
grow proportionably. But how this love came to be produced 
in me so early, is a hard question: I believe I can tell the par- 
ticular little chance that filled my head first w4th such chimes 
of verse, as have never since left ringing there : for I remember 
when I began to read, and take some pleasure in it, there was 
wont to lie in my mother's parlour (I know not by what acci- 
dent, for she herself never in her life read any book but of 
devotion) ; but there was wont to lie Spenser's works ; this I 
happened to fall upon, and was infinitely delighted with the 
stories of the knights, and giants, and monsters, and brave 
houses, which I found everywhere there (though my under- 
standing had little to do with all this) ; and by degrees, with 
the tinkling of the rhyme, and dance of the numbers; so that I 
think I had read him all over before I was twelve years old. 
With these afi*ections of mind, and my heart wholly set upon 
letters, I went to the university; but was soon torn from thence 
by that public violent storm, which would suffer nothing to 
stand where it did, but rooted up every plant, even from the 
princely cedars to me, the hyssop. Yet I had as good fortune 
as could have befallen me in such a tempest; for I was cast by 
it into the family of one of the best persons, and into the court 
of one of the best princesses in the world. Now, though I was 
here engaged in ways most contrary to the original design of 
my life ; that is, into much company, and no small business, 
and into a daily sight of greatness, both militant and triumphant 
(for that was the state then of the English and the French 



1660-1685.] covv-LEY. 205 

courts ;) yet all this was so far from altering my opinion, that 
it only added the confirmation of reason to that which was be- 
fore but natural inclination. I saw plainly all the paint of that 
kind of life, the nearer I came to it ; and that beauty v/hich I 
did not fall in love with, when, for aught I knew, it was real, 
was not like to bewitch or entice me when I saw it was adul- 
terate. I met Avith several great persons, whom I liked very 
well, but could not perceive that any part of their greatness 
Avas to be liked or desired, no more than I would be glad or 
content to be in a storm, though I saw many ships which rid 
safely and bravely in it. A storm would not agree with my 
stomach, if it did with m,y courage; though I was in a crowd 
of as good company as could be found anywhere, though I was 
in business of great and honourable trust, though I eat at the 
best table, and enjoyed the best conveniences for present sub- 
sistence that ought to be desired by a man of my condition, in 
banishment and public distresses ; yet I could not abstain from 
renewing my old schoolboy's wish, in a copy of verses to the 
same effect : 

Well, tlien, I now do plainly see 

This busy world and I shall ne"er agree, &:c. 

And I never then proposed to myself any other advantage from 
his majesty's happy restoration, but the getting into some mode- 
rately convenient retreat in the country, which I thought in that 
case I might easily have compassed, as well as some others, 
who, with no greater probabilities or pretences, have arrived to 
extraordinary fortunes. 



THE PLEASURES OF A COUNTRY LIFE. 

The first wish of Virgil was, to be a good philosopher; the 
second, a good husbandman ; and God (whom he seemed to 
understand better than most of the most learned heathens) dealt 
with him just as he did with Solomon; because he prayed for 
wisdom in the first place, he added all things else which were 
subordinately to be desired. He made him one of the best 
philosophers and best husbandmen ; and to adorn both those 
faculties, the best poet: he made him besides all this a rich 
man, and a man who desired to be no richer. To be a hus- 
bandman is but a retreat from the city ; to be a philosopher, 
from the world ; or rather, a retreat from the world, as it is 
man's, into the world, as it is God's. But since nature denies 
to most men the capacity or appetite, and fortune allows but to 



206 COWLEY. [cHARLES II. 

a very few the opportunities or possibility of applying them- 
selves wholly to philosophy, the best mixture of human affairs 
that we can make are the employments of a country life. 

We are here among the vast and noble scenes of nature ; we 
are there (alluding to courts and cities) among the pitiful shifts 
of policy : we walk here in the light and open ways of the 
divine bounty ; we grope there in the dark and confused laby- 
rinths of human malice : our senses are here feasted with the 
clear and genuine taste of their objects, which are all sophisti- 
cated there, and for the most part overwhelmed with their con- 
traries. Here pleasure looks (methinks) like a beautiful, con- 
stant, and modest wife ; it is there an impudent, fickle, and 
painted harlot. Here is harmless and cheap plenty, there guilty 
and expenseful luxury. 

I shall only instance in one delight more, the most natural 
and best natured of all others, a perpetual companion of the 
husbandman ; and that is, the satisfaction of looking round 
about him, and seeing nothing but the effects and improvements 
of his own art and diligence ; to be always gathering of some 
fruits of it, and at the same time to behold others ripening, and 
others budding; to see all his fields and gardens covered with 
the beauteous creations of his own industry ; and to see, like 
God, that all his works are good. 



ON GREATNESS. 

Since we cannot attain to greatness, says the Sieur de Mon- 
tagn, let us have our revenge by railing at it : this he spoke but 
in jest. I believe he desired it no more than I do, and had 
less reason, for he enjoyed so plentiful and honourable a for- 
tune in a most excellent country, as allowed him all the real 
conveniences of it, separated and purged from the incommodi- 
ties. If I were but in his condition, I should think it hard 
measure, without being convinced of any crime, to be seques- 
tered from it, and made one of the principal officers of state. 
But the reader may think that what I now say is of small au- 
thority, because I never was, nor ever shall be put to the trial : 
I can therefore only make my protestation : 

If ever I more riches did desire 
Than cleanhness and quiet do require, 
If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat 
With any wish so mean as to be great, 
Continue, heav"n, still from me to remove 
The humble blessings of that life I love. 



1660-1685.] MILTON. 207 

I know very many men will despise, and some pity me for 
this humour, as a poor spirited fellow ; but I'm content, and, 
like Horace, thank God for being so. I confess, I love little- 
ness almost in all things. A little convenient estate, a little 
cheerful house, a little company, and a very little feast, and if 
I were ever to fall in love again (which is a great passion, and 
therefore, I hope, I have done with it) it would be, I think, 
with prettiness, rather than with majestical beauty. 



JOHN MILTON, 1608—1674. 

Far above all the poets of his own age, and in learning and sublimity 
without an equal in the whole range of English poetry, stands John Mil- 
ton. He was born in London, December 9, 1608. His father, who was a 
scrivener, and who had suffered much for conscience sake, doubtless infused 
into his son those principles of religious freedom, which made him, in sub- 
sequent years, the bulwark of that holy cause in England. He was also 
early instructed in music, to which may doubtless be attributed that rich- 
ness and harmony of his versification, which distinguish him as much as 
his learning and imagination. His early education was conducted with great 
care. At sixteen he entered the University of Cambridge. After leaving 
the university, where he was distinguished for his scholarship, he retired to 
the house of his father, who had relinquished business, and had purchased a 
small property at Horton in Buckinghamshire. Here he lived five years, 
devoting his time most assiduously to classical literature, making the well- 
known remark that he ^' cared not how late he came into life, only that he 
came fit.^^ While in the university he had written his grand " Hymn on 
the Nativity, any one verse of which was sufficient to show that a new and 
great light was about to rise on English poetry :" and there, at his father's, 
he wrote his " Comus," and "Lycidas," his "L'Allegro," and "II Pen- 
seroso," and his "Arcades." 

In 1638 he went to Italy, the most accomplished EngHshman that ever 
visited her classical shores. Here his society was courted by "the choicest 
Italian wits," and he visited Galileo,* then a prisoner in the Inquisition. 
On his return home, he opened a school in London, and devoted himself 
with great assiduity to the business of instruction. In the meantime, he 
entered into the religious disputes of the day, engaging in the controversy 
single-handed against all the royalists and prelates ; and though numbering 
among his antagonists such men as Bishop Hall and Archbishop Usher, 
proving himself equal to them all. In 1643 he married the daughter of 
Richard Powell, a high royalist ; but the connection did not prove a happy 
one, his wife being utterly incapable of appreciating the loftiness and purity 

' " The Tuscan artist." P. Lost, book i. line 288. 



208 MILTON. [cHARLES II. 

of the poet's character. In 1649 he was appointed Foreign Secretary under 
Cromwell, which office he held till the death of Cromwell, 1658. 

For ten years, Milton's eyesight had been failing, owing to the " weari- 
some studies and midnight watchings" of his youth. The last remains of it 
were sacrificed in the composition of his Defensio Populi, (Defence of the 
People of England,) and by the close of the year 1652, he was totally blind: 
" Dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon." At the Restoration he was 
obliged to conceal himself, till the publication of the act of oblivion released 
him from danger. He then devoted himself exclusively to study, and espe- 
cially to the composition of Paradise Lost. The idea of this unequalled 
poem was probably conceived as early as 1642. It was published in 1667. 
For the first and second editions the blind poet received but the sum of five 
pounds each! In 1671 he produced his "Paradise Regained," and "Sam- 
son Agonistes." A long sufferer from an hereditary disease, his Hfe was 
now drawing to a close. His mind was calm and bright to the last, and he 
died without a struggle, on Sunday, the 8ih of November, 1674. 

It is needless here to make any criticisms upon the works of this "great- 
est of great men," as essays almost numberless may be found upon his life 
and writings.^ His chief poetical works are — 1. His Paradise Lost, in twelve 
books, which is an account of the temptation and fall of our first parents. 2. 
Paradise Eegained, in four books, depicting the temptation and triumph of 
"the second Adam, the Lord from Heaven." 3. Samson AsoJiistes,^ a 
dramatic poem, relating the incidents of the life of the great champion of the 
Israelites, from the period of his bhndness, to the catastrophe that ended in 
bis death. 4. Lycidas, a monody on the death of a beloved friend, (Mr. 
Edward King.) who was shipwrecked in the Irish Sea. 5. L'AUegro, an 
ode to mirth. 6. II Penseroso, an ode to melancholy. 7. Comus, a Mask, 
the purest and most exquisite creation of the imagination and fancy in Eng- 
lish literature. 8. Arcades,'' a part of a mask. 9. Hymn on the Nativity. 
10. Sonnets. 

^ The best edition of Milton is that of Todd, London, 1809, 7 vols. This 
contains the invaluable verbal index. Another excellent edition has been 
edited by Sir Egerton Brydges, in 6 vols., the first volume of which is taken 
up with his life, which is admirably written. An edition of his prose works 
has been published in this city, by H. Hooker, edited by that accomplished 
scholar, Rev. Rufus W. Griswdld. An eloquent Essay on INIilton may be found 
in Macaulay's Miscellanies ; another in the Retrospective Review, xiv. 282 : 
and another in the London Quarterly, xxxvi. 29. In the following numbers 
of the Spectator, Addison has written a series of criticisms of the Paradise 
Lost : 262, 267, 273, 279, and so on for fifteen more numbers, at intervals of 
six ; and in No. 76 of the Observer, by Cumberland, there are some remarks 
upon the " Samson Agonistes." Consult, also, Hallam's Literature of Eu- 
rope ; and read an admirable article on Milton, in Dr. Channing's works. 

2 That is, "the champion," " the combatant," from the Greek a-^cc-icrThz 
{agonistes), " a combatant at the public games." 

2 Arcades, that is, the Arcadian shepherds : of course it is of a pastoral 
character. 



I 



1060-1685.] MILTON. 209 



SCENE FROM COMUS.l 

A wild wood. The lady enters. 

This way the noise was, if mine ear be true, 
My best guide now: methought it was the sound 
Of riot and ill-manag"d merriment, 
Such as the jocund flute, or gamesome pipe 
Stirs up among the loose unletter'd hinds. 
When for their teeming flocks and granges full, 
In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan, 
And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth 
To meet the rudeness, and swilTd insolence 
Of such late wassailers;^ yet O where else 
Shall I inform my unacquainted feet 
In the blind mazes of this tangled wood ? 
****** 

I cannot halloo to my Brothers, but 
Such noise as I can make to be heard farthest, 
I'll venture, for my new enliven'd spirits 
Prompt me ; and they perhaps are not far ofi". 



SONG.** 

Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that hv'st unseen 

Within thy aery shell, 
By slow jNIeander's margent green. 
And in the riolet-embroider'd vale, 

Where the love-lorn nightingale 
Nightly to thee her sad song moui-neth well : 
Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair 

That likest thy Narcissus are ? 

if thou have 

' The fable ofComus is this. A beautiful lady, attended by her two brothers, 
IS journeying through a dreary wood. The brothers become separated from 
their sister, who is met by Comus, the god of low pleasures, who, with his 
followers, holds his orgies in the night. She resists all his arts, and Comus 
and his crew are put to flight by the brothers, who come in time to rescue 
their sister. The object of the poem is to show the full power of true virtue 
and chastity, to triumph over all the assaults of wickedness; or, in the lan- 
guage of Shakspeare — 

That virtue never will be moved, 

Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven. 

- In some parts of England it is still customary for companies in the evening 
of the Christmas holidays, to go about carousing from house to house, who 
are called the " wassailers." In Macbeth, "wine and wassail" mean in 
general terms, feasting and drunkenness. 

^ " The songs of this poem are of a singular felicity : they are unbroken 
streams of exquisite imagery, either imaginative or descriptive, with a dance 
of numbers which sounds like aerial music : for instance, the Lady's song to 
Echo." — Brydges. 
14 



210 MILTON. [cHARLES II. 

Hid them in soine flowery cave, 
Tell me but where, 
Sweet queen of parley, daughter of the sphere ! 
So may'st thou be translated to the skies, 
And give resounding grace to all heaven's harmonies. 

Enter Comus. 

Comus. Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould 
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment "? 
Sure something holy lodges in that breast. 
And with these raptures moves the vocal air 
To testify his hidden residence. 
How sweetly did they float upon the wings 
Of silence, through the empty- vaulted night, 
At every fall smoothing the raven-down 
Of darkness, till it smil'd ! I have oft heard 
My mother Circe with the Syrens three, 
Amidst the flowery-kirtled Naiades, 
Culling their potent herbs, and baleful drugs, 
Who, as they sung, would take the prison"d soul, 
And lap it in Elysium ; Scylla wept. 
And chid her barking waves into attention, 
And fell Charybdis murmiir'd soft applause: 
Yet they in pleasing slumber lulfd the sense, 
And in sweet madness robb'd it of itself; 
But such a sacred and home-felt delight. 
Such sober certainty of waking bliss, 
I never heard till now. I'll speak to her. 
And she shall be my queen. Hail, foreign wonder ! 
Whom certain these rough shades did never breed, 
Unless the goddess that in rural shrine 
Dwell'st here with Pan, or Sylvan, by blest song 
Forbidding every bleak unkindly fog 
To touch the prosperous growth of this tall wood. 

Lady. Nay, gentle Shepherd, ill is lost that praise 
That is address'd to unattending ears ; 
Not any boast of skill, but extreme shift 
How to regain my sever'd company, 
Compell'd me to awake the courteous Echo 
To give me answer from her mossy couch. 

Com. What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus ? 

Lady. Dim darkness, and this leafy labyrinth. 

Com. Could that divide you from near-ushering guides 1 

Lady. They left me weary on a grassy turf. 

Com. By falsehood, or discourtesy, or why? 

Lady. To seek i' the valley some cool friendly spring. 

Com. And left your fair side all unguarded, lady"? 

Lady. They were but twain, and purpos'd quick return. 

Com. Perhaps forestalling night prevented them. 

Lady. How easy my misfortune is to hit ! 

Com. Imports their loss, beside the present need'? 

Lady. No less than if I should my brothers lose. 



1660-1685.] MILTON. 2U 

Com. Were they of manly prime, or youthful bloom ? 

Lady. As smooth as Hebe's their um-azor"d lips. 

Com. Two such I saw, what time the labour'd ox 
In his loose traces from the furrow came, 
And the swink"d' hedger at his supper sat; 
I saw them under a green manthng vine, 
That crawls along the side of yon small hill, 
Plucking ripe clusters fwui the tender shoots ; 
Their port was more than human as they stood : 
I took it for a fairy vision 
Of some gay creatures of the element, 
That in the colours of the rainbow live, 
And play i' the plighted clouds. I was awe-struck, 
And, as I pass'd, I worshipp"d ; if those you seek, 
It were a journey like the path to heaven, 
To help you find them. 

Lady. Gentle villager, 

What readiest way would bring me to that place ? 

Co7n. Due west it rises from this shrubby point. 

Lady. To find out that, good shepherd, I suppose. 
In such a scant allowance of star-Ught, 
Would overtask the best land-pilot's art, 
Without the sure guess of well-practis'd feet. 

Com. I know each lane, and every alley green, 
Dmgle, or bushy dell, of this wild wood. 
And every bosky bourn from side to side, 
My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood ; 
And if your stray attendants be yet lodged. 
Or shroud withm these limits, I shall know 
Ere morrow wake, or the low roosted lark 
From her thatch'd pallet rouse ; if otherwise, 
I can conduct you, lady, to a low 
But loyal cottage, where you may be safe 
Till farther quest. 

Lady. Shepherd, I take thy word. 

And trust thy honest ofFer'd courtesy, 
Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds 
With smoky rafters, than in tapestry halls 
And courts of princes, where it first was named. 
And yet is most pretended : in a place 
Less warranted than this, or less secure, 
I cannot be, that I should fear to change it. 
Eye me, blest Providence, and square my trial 
To my proportion'd strength. Shepherd, lead on. 



Hence, loathed Melancholy, 
Of Cerberus and blackest midnight born, 

' " Swink'd," i. e., tired, fatigued. 

^ L^ Allegro is the cheerful, merry man ; and in this poem he describes the 



212 MILTON. [CHARLES II. 

In Stygian cave forlorn, 

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy ! 
Find out some uncouth cell, 

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, 
And the night-raven sings : 

There under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks, 
As ragged as thy locks, 

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. 

But come, thou goddess fair and free. 
In heaven yclep'd Euphrosyne, 
And, by men, heart-easing Mirth ; 
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth. 
With two sister Graces more, 
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore : 
Or whether (as some sager sing) 
The frolic wind that breathes the spring, 
Zephyr, with Aurora playing, 
As he met her once a-Maying; 
There on beds of violets blue. 
And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, 
Fiird her with thee a daughter fair, 
So buxom, blithe, and debonair. 

Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee 
Jest, and youthful Jollity, 
Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, 
Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles, 
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek. 
And love to live in dimple sleek ; 
Sport that wrinkled Care derides. 
And Laughter holding both his sides. 
Come, and trip it, as you go, 
On the light fantastic toe ; 
And in thy right hand lead with thee 
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty j 
And, if I give thee honour due, 
Mirth, admit me of thy crew. 
To live with her, and live with thee, 
In unreproved pleasures free ; 
To hear the lark begin his flight, 
And singing startle the dull night. 
From his watch-tower in the skies, 
Till the dappled dawn doth rise ; 
Then to come, in spite of sorrow, 
And at my window bid good-morrow. 
Through the sweet-brier, or the vine. 
Or the twisted eglantine : 
While the cock, with lively din. 
Scatters the rear of darkness thin, 
And to the stack, or the barn-door, 
Stoutly struts his dames before : 

course of mirth in the country and in the city, from morning to noon, and from 
noon till night. 



1660-1685.] MILTON. 213 



Oft list'ning how the hounds and horn 
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn, 
From the side of some hoar hill, 
Through the high wood echoing shrill ; 
Some time walking, not unseen, 
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green, 
Right against the eastern gate 
Where the great sun begins his state. 
Robed in flames, and amber light. 
The clouds in thousand liveries dight ; 
While the ploughman, near at hand, 
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land, 
And the milkmaid singeth blithe, 
And the mower whets his scythe, 
And every shepherd tells his tale. 
Under the hawthorn in the dale. 



FROM IL PENSEROSO.l 

Hence, vain deluding joys. 
The brood of Folly without father bred ! 
How little you bested, 

Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys ! 
Dwell in some idle brain, 

And fancies fond with gaudy shapes possess, 
As thick and numberless 
As the gay motes that people the sunbeams ; 
Or likest hovering dreams, 

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train. 
But hail, thou goddess sage and holy, 
Hail, divinest ^Melancholy! 
Whose saintly visage is too bright 
To hit the sense of human sight, 
And therefore to our weaker view 
0"erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue ; 
Black, but such as in esteem 
Prince Memnon's sister might beseem. 
Or that slarr'd Ethiop queen that strove 
To set her beauteous praise above 
The sea-nymphs, and their powers ofiended; 
Yet thou art higher far descended : 
Thee bright-hair"d Yesta, long of yore. 
To solitary Saturn bore; 
His daughter she ; in Saturn's reign 
Such mixture was not held a stain : 
Oft in glimmering bowers and glades 
He met her. and in secret shades 



1 U Penseroso is the thoughtful, melancholy man ; and this poem, both in 
its model and principal circumstances, is taken from a song in praise of me- 
lancholy in Beaumont and Fletcher-s comedy, called The Nice Valour, or 
Passionate Madman. 



1 



214 MILTON. [CHARLES II, 

Of woody Ida's inmost grove, 
While yet there was no fear of Jove. 

Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, 
Sober, stedfast, and demure, 
All in a robe of darkest grain, 
Plowing with majestic train, 
And sable stole of cypress lawn, 
Over thy decent shoulders drawn. 
Come, but keep thy wonted state, 
With even step, and musiiig gait; 
And looks commercing with the skies, 
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes : 
There, held in holy passion still, 
Forget thyself to marble, till 
With a sad leaden downward cast, 
Thou fix them on the earth as fast; 
And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet, 
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet, 
And hears the Muses in a ring, 
Aye round about Jove's altar sing : 
And add to these retired Leisure, 
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure : 
But first and chiefest, with thee bring, 
Him that yon soars on golden wing, 
Guiding the fiery-wheeled throne, 
The cherub Contemplation ; 
And the mute Silence hist along, 
'Less Philomel' will deign a song. 
In her sweetest, saddest plight. 
Smoothing the rugged brow of Night, 
While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke. 
Gently o'er the accustom'd oak; 
Sweet bird, that shun'st the noise of folly. 
Most musical, most melancholy ! 
Thee, chantress, oft the woods among, 
I woo, to hear thy even-song ; 
And missing thee, I walk unseen 
On the dry smooth-shaven green. 
To behold the wand'ring moon, 
Riding near her highest noon, 

'■ What a favourite the nightingale has been with the best poets, ancient 
and modern. Homer, Theocritus, Virgil, and Horace have sung its praises ; 
Milton has shown his regard for it in numerous passages, and in a sonnet 
dedicated to it ; Thomson, the poet of nature, has celebrated it ; and Gray has 
remembered it in his ode to Spring. But which of these has anything superior 
to honest old Izaak Walton, in his Complete Angler ? " But the nightingale, 
another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet loud music out of her little 
instrumental throat, that it might make mankind to think miracles are not 
ceased. He that at midnight, when the very labourer sleeps securely, should 
hear, as I have very often, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural 
rising and falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be 
lifted up above earth, and say, ' Lord, what music hast thou provided for the 
saints in heaven, when thou affordest bad vien such music upofi earth.' " 



1660-1685.] MILTON. 215 

Like one that had been led astray 
Throixgh the heaven's wide pathless way ; 
And oft, as if her head she bow'd, 
Stooping through a fleecy cloud. 

SONNET ON HIS OWN BLINDNESS. 

When I consider how my light is spent 

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, 
And that one talent^ v/hich is death to hide, 
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent 

To serve therewith my Maker, and present 
My true account, lest he, returning, chide; 
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" 
I fondly ask : but Patience, to prevent 

That iiiurmur, soon replies, " God doth not need 
Either mail's work, or his own gifts ; who best 
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best ; his state 

Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, 
And post o'er land and ocean without rest ; 
They also serve who only stand and wait." 



TO CYRIACK SKINNER.^ 

Cyriack, this three years' day these eyes, though clear. 

To outward view, of blemish or of spot, 

Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot ; 

Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear 
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year. 

Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not 

Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot 

Of heart or hope ;3 but still bear up and steer 
Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? 

The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied 

In liberty's defence,^ my noble task, 
Of which all Europe rings from side to side. 

This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask. 

Content, though blind, had I no better guide. 

* He speaks here with allusion to the parable of the talents, Matt, xxv., and 
with great modesty of himself, as if he had not five, or two, but only one 
talent. 

2 Cyriack Skinner was the son of William Skinner, Esq., a merchant of Lon- 
don. He was an ingenious young gentleman, and a scholar to John Milton. 

^ Of heart or hope, 8i.c. "One of Milton's characteristics was a singular 
fortitude of mind, arising from a consciousness of superior abilities, and a con- 
viction that his cause was just." — Warton. 

' When Milton had entered upon the labour of writing his " Defence of 
the People of England," one of his eyes was almost gone, and the physicians 
predicted the loss of both if he proceeded. But he says, " I did not long 
balance whether my duty should be preferred to my eyes." And yet ("proh 
pudor .') this masterly work was, at the Restoration, ordered to be burnt by 
the common hangman ! 



16 ■ MILTON. [c 



HARLES II. 



samson's lamentation for his blindness. 

From Samson Agonistes. 

O loss of sight, of thee I most complam ! 
Bhnd among enemies, worse than chains, 
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age ! 
Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct, 
And all her various objects of delight 
Annuird, which might in part my grief have eased, 
Inferior to the vilest now become 
Of man or worm ; the vilest here excel me : 
They creep, yet see ; I, dark in light, expos'd 
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong, 
Withm doors, or without, still as a fool, 
In power of others, never in my own; 
Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half. 
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon. 
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse 
Without all hope of day! 
O first-created beam, and thou great Word, 
■'Let there be light, and light was over all;"' 
Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree? 
The sun to me is dark 
And silent as the moon, 
When she deserts the night. 
Hid in her vacant interhmar cave. 
Since light so necessary is to life, 
And almost life itself, if it be true 
That light is in the soul, 
She all in every part ; why was this sight 
To such a tender ball as the eye confined. 
So obvious and so easy to be quench'd ? 
And not, as feeling, through all parts difiused. 
That she might look at will through every pore? 
Then had I not been thus exiled from light, 
As in the land of darkness, yet in light. 
To live a life half dead, a living death, 
And buried ; but, yet more miserable ! 
Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave: 
Buried, yet not exempt, 
By privilege of death and burial. 
From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs: 
But made hereby obnoxious more 
To all the miseries of life, 
Life in captivity 
Among inhuman foes. 



1660-1685J MILTON. 217 

Milton's invocation to light. i 

Paradise Lost^ iii. 1. 

Hail, holy Light! offspring of heaven first-born! 

Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam, 

May I express thee unblamed ?2 since God is light, 

And never but in unapproached light 

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee, 

Bright effluence of bright essence increate ! 

Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream," 

"Whose fountain who shall telH^ Before the sun, 

Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice 

Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest 

The rising world of waters dark and deep, 

Won from the void and formless infinite. 

Thee I revisit now with bolder wing, 

Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detain'd 

In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight, 

Through utter and through middle darkness borne, 

With other notes than to the Orphean lyre, 

I sung of Chaos and eternal Night; 

Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down 

The dark descent, and up to reascend. 

Though hard and rare : thee I revisit safe, 

And feel thy sovereign vital lamp ; but thou 

Revisit"st not these eyes, that roil in vain 

To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn; 

So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs, 

Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more 

Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt 

Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, 

Smit with the love of sacred song ; but chief 

Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath," 

That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow, 

Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget 

Those other two equall'd with me in fate, 

So were I equalfd with them in renown, 

Blind Thamyris, and blind Mseonides,^ 

'■ "This celebrated complaint, with which Milton opens the third book, de- 
serves all the praises which have been given \t."-:-Addison. 

- That is, may I, without blame, call thee the co-eternal beam of the Eternal 
God. 

"■ Or rather dost thou hear this address, dost thou rather to be called, pure 
ethereal stream ? 

' As in Job, xxxviii. 19, " Where is the way where light dwelleth ?" 

' Kedron and Siloa. " He still was pleased to study the beauties of the 
ancient poets, but his highest delight was in the Songs of Sion, in the holy 
Scriptures, and in these he meditated day and night. This is the sense of 
the passage stripped of its poetical ornaments." — Newton. 

"^ Mffionides is Homer. Thamyris was a Thracian, and invented the Doric 
mood or measure. Tiresias and Phineus, the former a Theban, the latter a 



218 5IILT0N. [cHARLES II. 

And Tiresias, and Pliineus, prophets old: 

Then feed on thoughts, that voluntaiy move 

Harmonious numbers: as the wakeful bird 

Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid, 

Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus \rith. the year 

Seasons retm-n ; but not to me returns 

Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, 

Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose. 

Or flocks, or herds, or htnnan face divine ; 

But cloud instead; and ever-during dark 

Surromids me, from the cheerful ways of men 

Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair. 

Presented with a universal blank 

Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased, 

And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. 

So much the rather thou, celestial Light, 

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers 

Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence 

Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell 

Of things invisible to mortal sight. 



EVE S ACCOUNT OF HER CREATION. 

Paradise Lost. iv. 449. 

'• That day I oft remember, when from sleep 
I first awaked, and found myself reposed, 
Under a shade, on flowers, laiuch wondering where 
And what I was. whence thither brought, and how. 
Not distant far from thence a murmuring sound 
Of waters issued from a cave, and spread 
Into a liquid plain, then stood unmoved, 
Pure as the expanse of heaven ; I thither went 
With unexperienced thought, and laid me down 
On the gi-een bank, to look into the clear 
Smooth lake, that to me seemed another sky. 
As I bent down to look, just opposite 
A shape within the watery gleam appear'd, 
Bending to look on me : I started back, 
It started back; but pleased I soon retum'd, 
Pleas'd it return'd as soon, with answering looks 
Of spnpathy and love : there I had fix'd 
Mine eyes till now", and pined Avith vain desire, 
Had not a voice thus warn'd me : ' What thou seest, 
What there thou seest, fair creature, is thyself; 

king of Arcadia, were famous blind bards of antiquity. Milton uses the word 
•' prophet" in the sense of the Latin votes, which unites the character of 
prophet and poet. Indeed throughout Milton's poetry there are words and 
phrases perpetually occurring that are used in their pure Latin sense, the 
beauties of which none but a classical scholar can fully appreciate. This, of 
itself, is a sufficient answer to the senseless question so often asked, " What 
is the use of a girl-s studying Latin ?" 



1660-1685.] MiLTOx. 219 

With thee it came and goes ; but follow me, 

And I will bring thee where no shadow stays 

Thy coming, and thy soft embraces ; he 

Whose image thou art : him thou shalt enjoy, 

Inseparably thine, to him shalt bear 

Multitudes like thyself, and thence be call'd 

Mother of human race.' What could I do, 

But follow straight, invisibly thus led "? 

Till I espied thee, fair indeed, and tall, 

Under a plantane ; yet methought less fair, 

Less winning soft, less amiably mild. 

Than that smooth watery image : back I turn'd ; 

Thou, following, cryxlst aloud, ' Return, fair Eve ; 

Whom fly"st thou? whom thou fly'st, of him thou art, 

His flesh, his bone ; to give thee being I lent 

Out of my side to thee, nearest my heart. 

Substantial life, to have thee by my side 

Henceforth an individual solace dear ; 

Part of my soul, I seek thee, and thee claim, 

My other half With that thy gentle hand 

Seized mine : I yielded ; and from that tune see 

How beauty is excell'd by manly grace. 

And wisdom, which alone is truly fair."' 



SATAN S SPEECH WHEN THRUST DOWN TO HELL. 

Paradise Lost, i. 242. 

" Is this the region, this the soil, the clime," 
Said then the lost archangel, " this the seat 
That we must change for heaven ; this mournful gloom 
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he. 
Who now is Sovereign, can dispose and bid 
What shall be right : farthest from him is best, 
Whom reason hath equalfd, force hath made supreme 
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields. 
Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail, 
Infernal world ! and thou, profoundest hell. 
Receive thy new possessor; one who brings 
A mind not to be changed by place or time : 
The mind is its own place, and in itself 
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. 
What matter where, if I be still the same. 
And what I should be; all but less than he 
Whom thunder hath made greater 1 Here at least 
We shall be free: the Almighty hath not built 
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: 
Here we may reign secure ; and, in my choice. 
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell; 
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven !" 



220 MILTON. [cHARLES II. 

DESCRIPTION OF SATAN. 

Paradise Lost, i. 283. 

He' scarce had ceased, when the superior fiend 
Was moving toward the shore : his ponderous shield, 
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, 
Behind him cast ; the broad circumference 
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb 
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views 
At ev'ning from the top of Fesole, 
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, 
Rivers, or mountains, on her spotty globe. 
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine 
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast 
Of some great admiral, were but a wand, 
He walk'd with, to support uneasy steps 
Over the burning marie, not like those steps 
On heaven's azure, and the torrid clime 
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire : 
Nathless he so endur'd, till on the beach 
Of that inflamed sea he stood and call'd 
His legions, angel-forms, who lay entranc'd, 
Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks 
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades. 
High over-arch'd, imbower ; or scattered sedge 
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'd 
Hath vex'd the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew 
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry, 
While with perfidious hatred they pursued 
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld 
From the safe shore their floating carcasses,- 
And broken chariot- wheels : so thick bestrewn, 
Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood, 
Under amazement of their hideous change. 
He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deep 
Of hell resounded: "Princes, potentates. 
Warriors, the flower of heaven, once yours, now lost, 
If such astonishment as this can seize 
Eternal spirits ; or have ye chosen this place 
After the toil of battle to repose 
Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find 
To slumber here, as in the vales of heaven? 
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn 
To adore the Conqueror? who now beholds 
Cherub and seraph rolling in the flood 
With scatter'd arms and ensigns, till anon 
His swift pursuers from heaven-gates discern 
The advantage, and descending, tread us down 
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts 

' Beelzebub. 



I 



1660-1685.] MILTON. 221 

Transfix us to the bottom of this gi-xlf ? 
Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!" 

EVENING IN PARADISE. 

Paradise Lost, iv. 598. 

Now came still evening on, and twilight grey 
Had in her sober livery all things clad : 
Silence accompanied ; for beast and bird, 
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests. 
Were slunk; all but the wakeful nightingale; 
She all night long her amorous descant sung; 
Silence was pleas'd: now glow'd the firmament 
With living sapphires ; Hesperus, that led 
The starry host, rode brightest; till the moon 
Rising in clouded majesty, at length. 
Apparent queen, unveifd her peerless light. 
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw. 

When Adam thus to Eve : " Fair consort, the hour 
Of night, and all things now retir'd to rest, 
Mind us of like repose ; since God hath set 
Labour and rest, as day and night, to men 
Successive; and the timely dew of sleep, 
Now falling with soft slumb"rous weight, inclines 
Our eyelids; other creatures all day long 
Rove idle, luiemploy'd, and less need rest : 
Man hath his daily work of body or mind 
Appointed, which declares his dignity. 
And the regard of heaven on all his ways : 
While other animals unactive range, 
And of their doings God takes no account. 
To-morrow, ere fresh morning streak the east 
With first approach of light, we must be risen. 
And at our pleasant labour, to reform 
Yon flowery artours, yonder alleys green, 
Our walk at noon, with branches overgrown, 
That mock our scant manuring, and require 
More hands than ours to lop their wanton growth : 
Those blossoms also, and those dropping gums, 
That lie bestrewn, unsightly and unsmooth. 
Ask riddance, if we mean to tread with ease; 
Meanwhile, as nature wills, night bids us rest." 

To whom thus Eve, with perfect beauty 'dorn'd: 
" My author and disposer, what thou bidd'st 
Unargued I obey ; so God ordains : 
God is thy law, thou mine : to know no more 
Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise. 
With thee conversing, I forget all time ; 
All seasons, and their change, all please alike. 
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, 



222 MILTON. [CHARLES II. 

With charm of earliest birds : pleasant the sun, 
When first on this delightful land he spreads 
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, 
Glist'ring with dew : fragrant the fertile earth 
After soft showers: and sweet the coming on 
Of grateful evening mild: then silent night, 
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon, 
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train. 
But neither breath of morn, when she ascends 
With charm of earliest birds : nor rising sun 
On this delightful land : nor herb, fruit, flower, 
Glist'ring with dew : nor fragrance after showers : 
Nor grateful evening mild : nor silent night, 
With this her solemn bird : nor walk by moon. 
Or glitt'ring starlight, without thee is sweet. 
But wherefore all night long shine these ? For whom 
This glorious sight, when sleep hath shut all eyes?" 

To whom our general ancestor replied : 
" Daughter of God and man, accomplish'd Eve, 
These have their course to finish round the earth 
By morrow evening, and from land to land 
In order, though to nations yet unborn, 
Minist'ring light prepar'd, they set and rise ; 
Lest total darkness should by night regain 
Her old possession, and extinguish life 
In nature and all things ; which these soft fires 
Not only enlighten, but, with kindly heat 
Of various influence, foment and w^arm. 
Temper or nourish, or in part shed down 
Their stellar virtue on all kinds that grow 
On earth, made hereby apter to receive 
Perfection from the sun's more potent ray. 
These, then, though unbeheld in deep of night, 
Shine not in vain. Nor think, though men were none, 
That heaven would want spectators, God want praise : 
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth 
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep : 
All these with ceaseless praise his works behold 
Both day and night. How often, from the steep 
Of echoing hill, or thicket, have we heard 
Celestial voices to the midnight air. 
Sole, or responsive each to other's note. 
Singing the great Creator ! oft in bands 
While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk, 
With heavenly touch of instrumental sounds 
In full harmonic number join'd, their songs 
Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to heaven." 

Thus talking, hand in hand alone they pass'd 
On to their blissful bower : it was a place 
Chosen by the sov'reign Planter, when he fram'd 
All things to man's delightful use ; the roof 



1660-1685.] MILTON. 223 

Of thickest covert was inwoven shade, 

Lam-el and myrtle, and what higher grew 

Of firm and fragrant leaf; on either side 

Acanthus, and each odorous bushy shrub, 

Fenc'd up the verdant wall; each beauteous flower. 

Iris all hues, roses and jessamin, 

Rear'd high their flourish'd heads between, and wrought 

Mosaic ; under foot the violet. 

Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay 

Broider'd the ground, more colour'd than with stone 

Of costliest emblein : other creature here. 

Beast, bird, insect, or worm, durst enter none. 

Such was their awe of man ! In shadier bower 

More sacred, and sequester'd, though but feign"d. 

Pan or Sylvaniis never slept; nor nymph 

Nor Faunus haunted. Here, in close recess, 

With flowers, garlands, and sweet-smelling herbs, 

Espoused Eve deck'd first her nuptial bed ; 

And heavenly quires the hymenean sang. 

What day the genial angel to our sire 

Brought her, in naked beauty more adorn'd. 

More lovely than Pandora ; whom the gods 

Endow"d with all their gifts ; and. ! too like 

Li sad event, when to the unwiser son 

Of Japhet brought by Hermes, she ensnared 

Mankind with her fair looks, to be aveng'd 

On him who had stole Jove's authentic fixe. 

Thus, at their shady lodge arriv'd, both stood,. 
Both turn"d, and under open sky ador'd 
The God that made sky, air. earth, and heaveli,. 
Which they beheld, the moon's resplendent globe, 
And starry pole : " Thou also mad'st the night; 
Maker Omnipotent! and thoii the day 
Which we, in our appomted work employ"d, 
Have finish"d, happy in our mutual help 
And mutual love, the crown of all our bliss 
Ordain'd by thee ; and tlois delicious place 
For us too large, where thy abundance "wants 
Partakers, and uncropt falls to the ground. 
But thou hast promisd from us two a race 
To fill the earth, who shall with us extol 
Thy goodness mfinite, both when we wake, 
And when we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep."' 



HYMN ON THE NATIVITY. 



It was the winter wild. 
While the heaven-born child 

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger hes ; 
Nature in awe to him, 



224 MILTON. [cHARLES II. 

Had doffd her gaudy trim. 

Witli her great JNIaster so to s}*iiipathize ; 
It was no season then for her 
To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour. 



No war, or battle's sound 
Was heard the Avorld around, 

The idle spear and shield were high up hung ; 
The hooked chariot stood 
Unstain"d with hostile blood; 

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; 
And ldi:igs sat still with awful e3'e, 
As if they surely knew their sov'ieign Lord was by. 



But peaceful was the night, 
"Wherein the Prmce of Light 

His reign of peace upon the earth began : 
The winds, M'ith \^'onder whist, 
Smoothly the waters kist, 

Whispering new joys to the mild ocean, 
Who now hath quite forgot to rave, 
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave. 

TI. 

The stars, with deep amaze, 
Stand fix'd in steadfast gaze, 

Bendmg one way their precious influence ; 
And will not take their flight, 
For all the morning hght. 

Or Lucifer that often warn"d them thence; 
But in their glimmering orbs did glow, 
Until the Lord himself bespake, and bid them go. 



The shepherds on the lawn, 
Or e"er the point of dawn. 

Sat simply chatting in a rustic row ; 
Full little thought they then. 
That the mighty Pan 

Was kuidly come to live with them below; 
Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, 
Was all that did theh silly thoughts so busy keep. 



When such music sweet 
Their hearts and ears did greet, 

As never was by mortal finger strook ; 
Divinely-warbled voice 
Answering the stringed noise, 

As all their souls in blissful rapture took : 
The air, such pleasures loth to lose, 
With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenlv close. 



1660-1685.] MILTON. 225 

XIX. 

The oracles are dumb. 
No voice or hideous hum 

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. • 
Apollo from his shrine 
Can no more divine, 

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. 
No nightly trance, or breathed spell, 
Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell. 



The lonely mountains o'er 
And the resounding shore, 

A voice of weeping heard and loud lament: 
From haunted spring and dale, 
Edg'd with poplar pale, 

The parting Genius is with sighing sent: 
With flower-inM^oven tresses torn. 
The Nymphs, in twilight shade of tangled thickets, mourn. 



In consecrated earth. 
And on the holy hearth, 

The Lares, and Lemures moan with midnight plaint ; 
In urns and altars round, 
A drear and dying sound 

Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; 
And the chill marble seems to sweat, 
While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat. 

The prose works of Milton are scarcely less remarkable than his poetry. 
They are mostly of a controversial character in Religion and Politics, and 
as such, have lost some of the interest with which they were invested in 
the stormy and eventful times in which his lot was cast; but they " breathe 
throughout," says Burnet, "that sublime, ethereal spirit, peculiar only to 
him. We are continually astonished and delighted at his never-faihni: 
abundance of sentiments and imagery — at that majestic stream and swell oi 
thoughts, with which his mind always flows. He was a man essentially 
great; and whoever wishes to form his language to a lofty and noble style — 
his character to a fervid sincerity of soul, will read the works of Milton," 

" The summit of fame is occupied by the poet, but the base of the vast 
elevation may justly be said to rest on his prose works ; and we invite his 
admirers to descend from the former, and survey the region that lies round 
about the latter; — a less explored, but not less magnificent domain." — Sir 
Egerton Brydges. 

Milton early commenced his ecclesiastical controversies, and in 1642 pub- 
lished '• The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelacy." The 
following is a part of the preface of the second book, and is particularly re- 
markable as giving a prophetic assurance of the proudest monument of his 
fame — Paradise Lost. 
15 



226 MILTON. [cHARLES II. 

Surely to every good and peaceable man, it must in nature 
needs be a hateful thing to be the displeaser and molester of 
thousands ; much better would it like him doubtless to be the 
messenger of gladness and contentment, which is his chief 
intended business to all mankind, but that they resist and op- 
pose their own happiness. 

But when God commands to take the trumpet, and blow a 
dolorous or jarring blast, it lies not in man's will what he shall 
say or what he shall conceal. If he shall think to be silent as 
Jeremiah did, because of the reproach and derision he met with 
daily, " and all his familiar friends watched for his halting," to 
be revenged on him for speaking the truth, he would be forced 
to confess as he confessed ; " his word was in my heart as a 
burning fire shut up in my bones ; I was weary with forbear- 
ing, and could not stay." 

Which might teach these times not suddenly to condemn all 
things that are sharply spoken or vehemently written as pro- 
ceeding out of stomach virulence and ill-nature ; but to con- 
sider rather, that if the prelates have leave to say the worst 
that can be said, or do the worst that can be done, while they 
strive to keep to themselves, to their great pleasure and com- 
modity, those things which they ought to render up, no man 
can be justly offended with him that shall endeavour to impart 
and bestow, without any gain to himself, those sharp and 
saving words, which would be a terror and a torment in him 
to keep back. 

For me, I have endeavoured to lay up as the best treasure 
and solace of a good old age, if God vouchsafe it me, the honest 
liberty of free speech from my youth, where I shall think it 
available in so dear a concernment as the church's good. For, 
if I be, whether by disposition, or what other cause, too in- 
quisitive, or suspicious of myself and mine own doings, who 
can help it? 

Concerning therefore this wayward subject against prelates, 
the touching wherefore is so distasteful and disquietous to a 
number of men ; as by w^hat hath been said I may deserve of 
charitable readers to be credited, that neither envy nor gall hath 
entered me upon this controversy, but the enforcement of con- 
science only, and a preventive fear lest this duty should be 
against me, when I would store up to myself the good pro- 
vision of peaceful hours ; so, lest it should be still imputed to 
me, as I have found it hath been, that some self-pleasing 
humours of vain-glory hath incited me to contest with men of 
high estimation, now while green years are upon my head ; 



1660-1685.] MILTON. 227 

from this needless surmisal I shall hope to dissuade the intelli- 
gent and equal auditor, if I can but say successfully that which 
in this exigent behoves me ; although I would be heard only, 
if it might be, by the elegant and learned reader, to whom 
principally for a while I shall beg leave I may address myself. 

To him it will be no new thing, though I tell him that if I 
hunted after praise, by the estimation of wit and learning, I 
should not write thus out of mine own season when I have 
neither yet completed to my mind the full circle of my private 
studies, although I complain not of any insufficiency to the 
matter in hand ; or were I ready to my wishes, it were a folly 
to commit any thing elaborately composed to the careless and 
interrupted listening of these tumultuous times. * * 

I must say, therefore, that after I had for my first years, by 
the ceaseless diligence and care of my father (whom God re- 
compense), been exercised to the tongues, and some sciences, 
as my age would suffer, by sundry masters and teachers at 
home and at the school, it was found, that whether aught was 
imposed me by them that had the overlooking, or betaken to 
of my own choice in English, or other tongue, prosing or 
versing, but chiefly this latter, the style, by certain vital signs 
it had, was likely to live. 

But much lateiier in the private academies of Italy, whither 
I was favoured to resort, perceiving that some trifles which I 
had in memory, composed at under twenty or thereabout, (for 
the manner is, that every one must give some proof of his wit 
and reading there,) met with acceptance above what was looked 
for ; and other things, which I had shifted in scarcity of books 
and conveniences to pack up amongst them, were received with 
written encomiums, which the Italian is not forward to bestow 
on men of this side the Alps; I began thus far to assent both 
to them and divers of my friends here at home, and not less to 
an inward prompting, which now grew daily upon me, that 
with labour and intense study (which I take to be my portion 
in this life), joined with the strong propensity of nature, I 
might perhaps leave something so written to aftertimes, as 
they should not willingly let it die. 

These thoughts at once possessed me ; and these other, that 
if I were certain to write as men buy leases, for three lives 
and downward, there ought no regard be sooner had, than to 
God's glory, by the honour and instruction of my country. 

For which cause, and not only for that I knew it would be 
hard to arrive at the second rank among the Latins, I applied 
myself to that resolution which Ariosto followed against the 



228 MILTON. [ 



CHARLES II. 



persuasions of Bembo, to fix all the industry and art I could 
imite to the adorning of my native tongue; not to make verbal 
curiosities the end (that were a toilsome vanity), but to be an 
interpreter and relater of the best and sagest things, among 
mine own citizens throughout this island in the mother dia- 
lect: that, what the greatest and choicest wits of Athens, 
Some, or m.odern Italy, and those Hebrews of old, did for their 
coimtry, I, in my proportion, with this over and above, of be- 
ing a Christian, might do for mine; not caring to be once 
named abroad, though perhaps I could attain to that ; but con- 
tent with these British islands as my world ; \vhose fortune 
hath hitherto been, that, if the Athenians, as some say, made 
their small deeds great and renowned by their eloquent writers, 
England hath had her noble achievements made small by the 
unskilful handling of monks and mechanics. 

Time serves not now, and perhaps I might seem too pro- 
fuse to give any certain account of what the mind at home, in 
the spacious circuits of her musing, hath liberty to propose 
to herself,' though of highest hope and hardest attempting; 
¥/hether that epic form whereof the two poems of Homer, and 
those other tv/o of Virgil and Tasso, are a diffuse, and the 
Book of Job a brief model ; — or whether the rules of Aristotle 
herein are strictly to be kept, or nature to be followed, which 
ill them that show art, and use judgment, is no transgression, 
but an enriching of art : or, lastly, what king, or knight, before 
the Conquest, might be chosen in whom to lay the pattern of a 
Christian hero. 

And, as Tasso gave to a prince of Italy his choice, whether 
he would command him to write of Godfrey's expedition 
against the infidels, or Belisarius against the Goths, or Charle- 
magne against the Lombards ; if to the instinct of nature and 
emboldening of art aught may be trusted, and there be nothing 
adverse in our climate or the fate of this age, it haply would 
be no rashness, from an equal diligence and inclination, to pre- 
sent the like offer in our own ancient stories ; or whether those 
dramatic compositions, wherein Sophocles and Euripides reign, 
shall be found more doctrinal and exemplary to a nation. 

The Scripture also affords us a divine pastoral drama in the 
" Song of Solomon," consisting of two persons, and a double 
chorus, as Origen rightly judges : and the "Apocalypse" of 
St. John is the majestic image of a high and stately tragedy, 
shutting up and intermingling her solemn scenes and acts with 

^ Here is evidence of his first conceptions of his immortal Epic. 



1G60-1685.] MILTON. 229 

a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies ; and 
this, my opinion, the grave authority of Pareeus, commenting 
that book, is sufficient to confirm. 

Or, if occasion shall lead to imitate those magniiic odes and 
hymns, wherein Pindarus and Callimachus are, in most things, 
worthy; some others in their frame judicious, in their matter 
most an end faulty. 

But those frequent songs throughout the law and prophets, 
beyond all these, not in their divine arguments alone, but in 
the very critical art of composition, may be easily made appear 
over all kinds of lyric poesy to be incomparable. 

These abilities,' wheresoever they be found, are the inspired 
gift of God, rarely bestowed, but yet to some, though most 
abused, in every nation ; and are of power, beside tlie office of 
a pulpit, to imbreed and cherish in a great people the seeds of 
virtue and public civility; to allay the perturbations of the 
mind, and set the affections in right tune ; to celebrate in 
glorious and lofty hymns the throne and equipage of God's 
almightiness, and what he works, and what he suffers to be 
wrought with high providence in his church ; to sing victorious 
agonies of martyrs and saints, the deeds and triumphs of just 
and pious nations, doing valiantly through faith against the 
enemies of Christ ; to deplore the general relapses of king- 
doms and states from justice and God's true worship. 

Lastly, whatsoever in religion is holy and sublime; in virtue 
amiable or grave ; whatsoever hath passion or admiration in all 
the changes of that which is called fortune from without, or the 
wily subdeties and refluxes of man's thoughts from within ; all 
these things with a solid and treatable smoothness to paint out 
and describe: tracking over the whole book of sanctity and 
virtue, through all the instances of example, with such delight 
to those especially of soft and delicious temper, who will not 
so much as look upon truth herself, unless they see her ele- 
gantly dressed ; that, whereas the paths of honesty and good 
life appear now rugged and diliicult, though they be indeed 
easy and pleasant, they will then appear to all men both easy 
and pleasant, though they were rugged and difficult indeed. 

And what a benefit this would be to our youth and gentry, 
may be soon guessed by what we know of the corruption and 
bane, which they suck in daily from the writings and inter- 
ludes of libidinous and ignorant poetasters, who having scarce 

'■ To me, this has ever seemed the loftiest paragraph in English prose 
literature. 



230 MILTON. [cHARLES II. 

ever heard of that which is the main consistence of a true poem, 
the choice of sucV persons as they ought to introduce, and what 
is moral and decent to each one ; do for the most part lay up 
vicious principles in sweet pills to be swallowed down, and 
make the taste of virtuous documents harsh and sour. * * 

Neither do I think it shame to covenant with my knowing 
reader, that for some few years yet, I may go on trust with him 
toward the payment of what I am now indebted; as being a 
work not to be raised from the heat of youth, or the vapours of 
wine, like that which flows at waste from the pen of some 
vulgar amourfst, or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite; 
nor to be obtained from the invocation of dame Memory and 
her syren, daughters ; but by devout prayer to that eternal 
Spirit,' who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and 
sends out his Seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to 
touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases. 

To this must be added industrious and select reading, steady 
observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and 
affairs; till which in some measure be compassed, at my own 
peril and cost, I refuse not to sustain this expectation from as 
many as are riot loth to hazard so much credulity upon the 
best pledges that I can give them. 

ARGUMENT FOR THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 

Lest some should persuade ye. Lords and Commons, that 
these arguments of learned men's discouragement at this your 
order are mere flourishes, and not real, I could recount what I 
have seen and heard in other countries, where this kind of 
inquisition tyrannises ; when I have sat among their learned 
men (for that honour I had), and been counted happy to be 
born in such a place of philosophic freedom, as they supposed 
England was, while themselves did nothing but bemoan the 
servile condition into which learning amongst them was 
brought ; that this ^vas it which had damped the glory of 
Italian wits ; that nothing had been there written now these 
many years but flattery and fustian. There it was that I found 
and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner to the 
inquisition, for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Fran- 
ciscan and Dominican licensers thought. And though I knew 
that England then was groaning loudest under the prelatical 

^ << And chiefly thou, Spirit, that dost prefer 
Before all temples th' upright heart and pure. 
Instruct me." — Paradise Lost, i. 17. 



1660-1685.] MILTON. 231 

yoke, nevertheless I took it as a pledge of future happiness 
that other nations were so persuaded of her liberty. Yet it 
was beyond my hope that those worthies were then breathing 
in her air, who should be her leaders to such a deliverance, as 
shall never be forgotten by any revolution of time that this 
world hath to finish. 



ENGLAND AND LONDON. 

Lords and Commons of England ! consider what nation it is 
whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors : a nation 
not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious and piercing spirit ; 
acute to invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the 
reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to. 
Therefore the studies of learning in her deepest sciences have 
been so ancient and so eminent among us, that writers of good 
antiquity and able judgment have been persuaded that even the 
school of Pythagoras and the Persian wisdom took beginning 
from the old philosophy of this island. And that wise and 
civil Roman, Julius Agricola, who governed once here for 
Caesar, preferred the natural wits of Britain, before the laboured 
studies of the French. Behold now this vast city; a city of 
refuge, the mansion-house of liberty, encompassed and sur- 
rounded with his protection ; the shop of war hath no,t there 
more anvils and ham.mers waking, to fashion out the plates and 
instruments of armed justice in defence of beleaguered truth, 
than there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious 
lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas, 
wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty, 
the approaching reformation ; others as fast reading, trying all 
things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement. 
What could a man require more from a nation so pliant and so 
prone to seek after knowledge ? What wants there to such a 
towardly and pregnant soil, but wise and faithful labourers, to 
make a knowing people, a nation of prophets, of sages and of 
worthies? we reckon more than five months yet to harvest; 
there need not be five weeks had we but eyes to lift up ; the 
fields are white already. 



Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation 
rousing himself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her 
invincible locks ; methinks I see her as an eagle muing her 



232 MILTON". [cHARLES II. 

mighty youth, and kindling her dazzled eyes at the full mid- 
day beam : purging and unsealing her long abused sight at the 
fountain itself of heavenly radiance ; while the whole noise of 
timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twi- 
light, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their 
envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms. 
Error supports custom, custom countenances error : and 
these two between them would persecute and chase away all 
truth and solid wisdom out of human life, were it not that 
God, rather than man, once in many ages calls together the 
prudent and religious counsels of men, deputed to repress the 
encroachments, and to Mork off the inveterate blots and ob- 
scurities wrought upon our minds by the subtle insinuating of 
error and custom ; who, with the numerous and vulgar train of 
their followers, make it their chief design to envy and cry 
down the industry of free reasoning under the terms of humour 
and innovation; as if the womb of teeming Truth were to be 
closed up, if she presumed to bring forth aught that sorts not 
with their unchewed notions and suppositions. 

THE ALL-CONQUERING POWER OF TRUTH. 

Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play 
upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by 
licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her 
and falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse 
in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and 
surest suppressing. He who hears what praying there is for 
light and clear knowledge to be sent down among us, would 
think of other matters to bt3 constituted beyond the discipline 
of Geneva, framed and fabricked already to our hands. Yet 
when the new life Avhich we beg for shines in upon us, there 
be who envy and oppose, if it come not first in at their case- 
ments. What a collusion is this, when as we are exhorted by 
the wise man to use diligence, ' to seek for wisdom as for hid- 
den treasures,' early and late, that another order shall enjoin us 
to know nothing but by statute! When a man hath been 
labouring the hardest labour in the deep mines of knowledge, 
hath furnished out his findings in all their equipage, drawn 
forth his reasons, as it were a batde ranged, scattered and de- 
feated all objections in his way, calls out his adversary into the 
plain, offers him the advantage of wind and sun, if he please, 
only that he may try the matter by dint of argument; for his 
opponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments, to keep a narrow 



1660-1685.] HALE. 233 

bridge of licensing where the challenger should pass, though it 
be valour enough in soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice 
in the wars of Truth. For who knows not that Truth is 
strong, next to the Almighty ? She needs no policies, nor 
stratagems, nor licensings, to make her victorious ; those are 
the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power; 
give her but room, and do not bind her when she sleeps.^ 



THE POET S MORNING. 

My morning haunts are, where they should be, at home ; 
not sleeping, or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast,2 
but up and stirring ; in winter, often ere the sound of any bell 
awake men to labour or to devotion ; in summer, as oft with the 
bird that first rises, or not much tardier, to read good authors, 
or cause them to be read till the attention be weary, or memory 
have its full freight. 



SIR MATTHEW HALE, 1609—1676. 

SiK Matthew Hale, one of the most upright judges that ever sat upon 
the English bench, was born at Alderly, in the county of Gloucester, in 
1609. His parents dying when he was quite young, he was educated by a 
Puritan clergyman, and entered Oxford at the age of seventeen. After 
leaving the university he applied himself to the study of the law with great 
assiduity, and was called to the bar a few years previous to the commence- 
ment of the civil war. In the subsequent contests that shook the nation, 

^ " Were half the power that fills the world with terror, 

Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts, 
Given to redeem the human mind from error. 
There were no need of arsenals and forts. 

" The warrior's name would be a name abhorred ! 
And every nation that should lift again 
Its hand against its brother, on its forehead 

Would wear i'br evermore the curse of Cain." — Longfellow. 
- Dr. Symmons, in his Life of Milton, says, " Abstinence in diet was one 
of Milton's favourite virtues ; which he practised invariably through life, and 
availed himself of every opportunity to recommend in his writings." 
madness ! to think use of strongest wines 
And strongest drinks our chief support of health, 
When God, with these forbidden, made choice to rear 
His mighty champion, strong above compare, 
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook. 

Samson Agonisies. 



234 HALE. [CHARLES II. 

Hale preserved a perfect neutrality, «hich was «,'-'»i"'f f^™""^'' '"'•', 
taerests as an advocate. But whether ■. .s manly and r.ght, n t.mes of 
Ireat political agitation, for a citizen to study his own .ndtv.dual qutet and 
fntere's'instead'of throwing the whole weigh, of his tnfluenee upon that 
cause which he deems the mostjust, is another question. 

Hale received a commission from Charles I and af^r the "button of 
that monarch, he was made, under Cromwell, one of the judges of the 
rlZn Bench the duties of which office he discharged with consummate 
SuTnd th s ri'c ':. tmpartiality. After the death of Cromwell, he was a 
metnber of the Parliament which recalled Charles H., and m the year o the 
Re"oration he was knighted. In 1C71 he was raised to the chtef.jus.tce ■ 
fhtof the King's Bench, where he presided with P^« .1>0"<'V° '''™^'l 
and advantage to the public, till 1675, when the state of h,s health obhged 
hta to resign. He died from dropsy on Christmas day of the followtng 

'T'is'n'o? necessary to speak more fully of his character here, as in a sub^ 
sequent page will be found Baxter's admirable sketch of it. 7 he only 
Tpo" upon his judicial reputation, is his having condemned two old women 
for witchcraft. This he iid with the most sincere belief that he was doing 
H^hT And how many other men, eminent for their piety, were also carr, 
away by that delusion, in the middle of the seveti.eemh cemury, not only 

'" Kir HairrrLmber of works of a legal character, but .. 

r';s rrctid^r^" ire^rnof r :"h ztctJpz 

by Bishop Burnet, in three volumes. As a specimen of his style, we giv, 
the following admirable letter of advice to his children: 

as one ,, .. t 

«< In whom 

biir British Themis gloried with just cause, 

Immortal Hale ! for deep discernment praised, 

And sound integrity not more, than famed 

For sanctity of manners undefiled." 
. The fact of witchcraft was admitted by Lord Bacon and Mr. Addison 
Dr. Jotson more than inclined to the -- /^^^.^^ ^^^^^e^^^^^^ 
William Blackstone quite frowns on opposers of this oo^trine. in 
chacres, therefore, which have been brought against the people of Sa^em. 
Mass., lie equally against the most learned, pious, and eminent of mankind. 



1660-1685.] HALE. 235 



UPON REGULATING THEIR CONVERSATION. 

Dear Children — I thank God I came well to Farrington 
this clay, about five o'clock. And as I have some leisure time 
at my inn, I cannot spend it more to my own satisfaction, and 
your benefit, than, by a letter, to give you some good counsel. 
The subject shall be concerning your speech ; because much 
of the good or evil that befalls persons arises from the well or 
ill managing of their conversation. When I have leisure and 
opportunity, I shall give you my directions on other subjects. 

Never speak anything for a truth which you know or be- 
lieve to be false. Lying is a great sin against God, who gave 
us a tongue to speak the truth, and not falsehood. It is a great 
offence against humanity itself; for, where there is no regard 
to truth, there can be no safe society between man and man. 
And it is an injury to the speaker; for, besides the disgrace 
which it brings upon him, it occasions so much baseness of 
mind, that he can scarcely tell truth, or avoid lying, even when 
he has no colour of necessity for it; and, in time, he comes to 
such a pass, that as other people cannot believe he speaks 
truth, so he himself scarcely knows when he tells a falsehood. 

As you must be careful not to lie, so you must avoid coming 
near it. You must not equivocate, nor speak anything posi- 
tively for which you have no authority but report, or conjec- 
ture, or opinion. 

Let your words be few, especially when your superiors or 
strangers are present, lest you betray your own weakness, 
and rob yourselves of tlie opportunity which you might other- 
wise have had, to gain knowledge, wisdom, and experience, by 
hearing those whom you silence by your impertinent talking. 

Be not too earnest, loud, or violent in your conversation. 
Silence your opponent with reason, not with noise. 

Be careful not to interrupt another when he is speaking ; 
hear him out, and you will understand him the better, and 
be able to ffive him the better answer. 

o 

Consider before you speak, especially when the business is 
of moment ; weigh the sense of what you mean to utter, and 
the expressions you intend to use, that they may be significant, 
pertinent, and inoffensive. Inconsiderate persons do not think 
>ill they speak ; or they speak, and then think. 

Some men excel in husbandry, some in gardening, some in 
mathematics. In conversation, learn, as near as you can, where 
the skill or excellence of any person lies ; put him upon talking 



236 HALE. [cHARLES II 

on that subject, observe what he says, keep it in your memory, 
or commit it to writing. By this means you will glean the 
worth and knowledge of everybody you converse with ; and 
at an easy rate, acquire what may be of use to you on many 
occasions. 

When you are in company witli light, vain, impertinent per- 
sons, let the observing of their failings make you the more 
cautious both in your conversation with them and in your 
general behaviour, that you may avoid their errors. 

If any one, whom you do not know to be a person of truth, 
sobriety, and weight, relates strange stories, be not too ready 
to believe or report them ; and yet (unless lie is one of your 
familiar acquaintances) be not too forward to contradict him. 
If the occasion requires you to declare your opinion, do it 
modestly and genUy, not bluntly nor coarsely; by this means 
you will avoid giving ofience, or being abused for too much 
credulity. 

If a man, whose integrity you do not very well know, makes 
you great and extraordinary professions, do not give much 
credit to him. Probably, you will find that he aims at some- 
thing besides kindness to you, and that when he has served 
his turn, or been disappointed, his regard for you will grow 
cool. 

Beware also of him who flatters you, and commends you to 
your fiice, or to one who he thinks will tell you of it; most 
probably he has cither deceived and abused you, or means to 
do so. Remember the fable of the fox commending the sing- 
hig of the crow, who had something in her mouth which the 
fox wanted. 

Be careful that you do not commend yourselves. It is a 
sign that your reputation is small and sinking, if your own 
tongue must praise you; and it is fulsome and unpleasing to 
others to hear such commendations. 

Speak well of the absent whenever you have a suitable op- 
portunity. Never speak ill of them, or of anybody, unless 
you are sure they deserve it, and unless it is necessary for 
their amendment, or for the safety and benefit of others. 

Avoid, in your ordinary communications, not only oaths, but 
all imprecations and earnest protestations. 

Forbear scoffing and jesting at the condition or natural de- 
fects of any person. Such oiFences leave a deep impression ; 
and they often cost a man dear. 

Be very careful that you give no reproachful, menacing, or 
spiteful words to any person. Good words make friends ; bad 



1660-1685.] HALE. 237 

words make enemies. It is great prudence to gain as many 
friends as we honestly can, especially when it may be done at 
so easy a rate as a good word ; and it is great folly to make an 
enemy by ill words, which are of no advantage to the party 
who uses them. When faults are committed, they may, and 
by a superior they must, be reproved : but let it be done with- 
out reproach or bitterness ; otherwise it Avill lose its due end 
and use, and, instead of reforming the offence, it will exaspe- 
rate the offender, and lay the reprover justly open to reproof. 

If a person be passionate, and give you ill language, rather 
pity him than be moved to anger. You will find that silence, 
or very gentle words, are the most exquisite revenge for 
reproaches ; they will either cure the distemper in the angry 
man, and make him sorry for his passion, or they will be a 
severe reproof and punishment to him. But, at any rate, they 
will preserve your innocence, give you the deserved reputation 
of wisdom and moderation, and keep up the serenity and com- 
posure of your mind. Passion and anger make a man unfit for 
everything that becomes him as a man or as a Christian. 

Never utter any profane speeches, nor make a jest of any 
Scripture expressions. When you pronounce the name of 
God or of Christ, or repeat any passages or words of Holy 
Scripture, do it with reverence and seriousness, and not lightly, 
for that is "taking the name of God in vain." 

If you hear of any unseemly expressions used in religious 
exercises, do not publish them ; endeavour to forget them ; or, 
if you mention them at all, let it be with pity and sorrow, not 
witii derision or reproach. 

Read these directions often ; think of them seriously ; and 
practise them diligently. You will find them useful in your 
conversation ; which will be every day the more evident to 
you, as your judgment, understanding, and experience increase. 

I have little further to add, at this time, but my wish and 
command that you will remember the former counsels that I 
have frequently given you. Begin and end the day with pri- 
vate prayer; read the Scriptures often and seriously; be atten- 
tive to the public worship of God. Keep yourselves in some 
useful employment ; for idleness is the nursery of vain and 
sinful thoughts, which corrupt the mind, and disorder the life. 
Be kind and loving to one another. Honour your minister. 
Be not bitter nor harsh to my servants. Be respectful to all. 
Bear my absence patiently and cheerfully. Behave as if I 
were present among you and saw you. Remember, you have 
a greater Father than I am, who always, and in all places, be- 



238 BARROW. [cHARLES II. 

holds you, and knows your hearts and thoughts. Study to 
requite ray love and care for you with dutifulness, observance, 
and obedience; and account it an honour that you have an op- 
portunity, by your attention, faithfulness, and industry, to pay 
some part of that debt which, by the laws of nature and of 
gratitude, you owe to me. Be frugal in my family, but let 
there be no want; and provide conveniently for the poor. 

I pray God to fill your hearts with his grace, fear, and love, 
and to let you see the comfort and advantage of serving him ; 
and that his blessing, and presence, and direction, may be with 
you, and over you all. — I am your ever loving father. 



ISAAC BARROW, 1G30— 1G77. 

Dr. Isaac Baerow, an eminent divine and mathematician, was the son 
of a linen-draper of London, and was born in that city in 1630. He studied 
at Cambridge for the ministry ; but being a royahst, and seeing but httle 
chance of preferment for men of his sentiments in church or state, he turned 
his views to the medical profession, and engaged in the study of anatomy, 
botany, and chemistry. In 1665, having been disappointed in his expecta- 
tions of obtaining a Greek professorship, he determined to travel, and spent 
some years in visiting France, Italy, Smyrna, Constantinople, Germany 
and Holland. He returned in 1659, and was elected, in the following year, 
to the professorship in Cambridge, for which he had formerly been a candi- 
date, and in 1662 to that of geometry in Gresham College, London. In 
1663 he resigned both of these, on being elected professor of mathematics in 
Cambridge University. After filling this professorship with distinguished 
ability for six years, he made a voluntary resignation of it to his illustrious 
friend, Sir Isaac Newton, resolving to devote himself exclusively to theo- 
logical studies. In 1670 he was made doctor of divinity, and two years 
after he was appointed master of Trinity College, by the King, who remarked 
on the occasion, that he had given the place to the best scholar in England. 
He died on the 4th of May, 1677. 

Dr. Barrow was a m.an of vast and comprehensive mind. During his life, 
he was more known as a mathematician, being inferior only to Newton, 
and the treatises he published on his favorite science were numerous and 
profound. They were, however, mostly written in Latin, and designed for 
the learned : they are therefore now but little known. Not so with his 
theological works. "His sermons," says Hallam, " display a strength of 
mind, a comprehensiveness, and fertility which have rarely been equalled. *- 
Charles II. was accustomed facetiously to style him a most unfair preacher, 
because he exhausted every subject, and left nothing to be said by others. 
His sermons were of unusual length, being seldom less than an hour and a 
half, and on one occasion, in preaching a charity sermon, he was three 



1660-1685.] BARROW. 239 

hours and a half in the delivery. Being asked, on descending from the 
pulpit, whether he was not tired, he replied, "yes, indeed, I began to be 
weary with standing so long :" so great was his intellectual fertility, that 
mental fatigue seemed to be out of the question. Dr. Dibdin remarks of 
him, that he "had the clearest head with which mathematics ever endowed 
an individual, and one of the purest and most unsophisticated hearts that 
ever beat in the human breast." He once uttered a most memorable ob- 
servation, which characterizes both the intellectual and moral constitution 
of his mind, — would that it could be engraven on the mind of every youth, 
as his guide through life, — "a straight line is the shortest in morals 

AS WELL AS IN GEOMETRY." 



THE DUTY AND REWARD OF BOUNTY TO THE POOR. 

He whose need craves our bounty, whose misery demands 
our mercy, what is he ? He is not truly so mean and sorry a 
thing, as the disguise of misfortune, under which he appears, 
doth represent him. He who looks so deformedly and dis- 
mally, who to outward sight is so ill bestead, and so pitifully 
accoutred, hath latent in him much of admirable beauty and 
glory. He within himself containeth a nature very excellent ; 
an immortal soul, and an intelligent mind, by which he nearly 
resembleth God himself, and is comparable to angels : he in- 
visibly is owner of endowments rendering him capable of the 
greatest and best things. What are money and lands? what 
are silk and fine linen ? what are horses and hounds in com- 
parison to reason, to wisdom, to virtue, to religion, which he 
hath, or (in despight of all misfortune) he may have if he 
please ? He whom you behold so dejectedly sneaking, in so 
despicable a garb, so destitute of all convenience and comfort, 
lying in the dust, naked or clad with rags, meager with hunger 
or pain, he comes of a most high and heavenly extraction : he 
was born a prince, the son of the greatest King eternal ; he can 
truly call the Sovereign Lord of all the world his father, having 
derived his soul from the mouth, having had his body formed 
by the hands of God himself. In this, the rich and poor, as 
the wise man saith, do tneet together ; the Lord is the maker 
of them all. That same forlorn wretch, whom we are so apt 
to despise and trample upon, was framed and constituted Lord 
of the visible world ; had all the goodly brightnesses of heaven, 
and all the costly furnitures of earth created to serve him. 
Thou madest him (saith the Psalmist of man) to have domi7i- 
ion over the works of thine hands ; thou hast ptit all things 
under his feet. Yea, he was made an inhabitant of Paradise, 
and possessor of felicities superlative ; had immortal life and 



240 EARROW. [cHARLES IT. 

endless joy in his hand, did enjoy the entire favour and friend- 
ship of the Most High. Such in worth of nature and noble- 
ness of birth he is, as a man : and highly more considerable he 
is, as a Christian. For, as vile and contemptible as he looks. 
God hath so regarded and prized him, as for his sake to de- 
scend from heaven, to cloath himself with flesh, to assume the 
form of a servant ; for his good to undertake and undergo the 
greatest inconveniences, infirmities, wants, and disgraces, the 
most grievous troubles and most sharp pains incident to mortal 
nature. God hath adopted him to be his child ; the Son of 
God hath deigned to call him brother : he is a member of 
Christ, a temple of the Holy Ghost, a free denizen of the 
heavenly city, an heir of salvation, and candidate of eternal 
glory. The greatest and richest personage is not capable of 
better privileges than God hath granted him, or of higher pre- 
ferments than God hath designed him to. He, equally witli 
the mightiest prince, is the object of God's especial providence 
and grace, of his continual regard and care, of his fatherly love 
and affection ; who, as good Elihii saith, acceptefh not the per- 
sons of jjrinces, nor regardeth the rich more than the poor : 
for they are all the work of his hands. In fine, this poor 
creature whom thou seest is a man, and a Christian, thine equal, 
whoever thou art, in nature, and thy peer in condition : I say 
not, in the uncertain and unstable gifts of fortune, not in thit^ 
worldly state, which is very inconsiderable ; but in gifts vastly 
more precious, in title to an estate infinitely more rich and ex- 
cellent. Yea, if thou art vain and proud, be sober and humble ; 
he is thy better, in true dignity much to be preferred before 
thee, far in real wealth surpassing thee : for, better is the poor 
that walketh in his uprightness, than he that is perverse in his 
ways, though he be rich. 

THE STRUCTURE OF THE KU3IAX BODY A PROOF OF DIVIXE 
WISD03I. 

Can any man, endued with common sense, imagine that such 
a body as any of us doth bear about him, so neatly composed, 
fitted to so many purposes of action; furnished with so many 
goodly and proper organs ; that eye by which we reach the 
stars, and in a moment have, as it were", all the world present 
to us ; that ear by which we so subtly distinguish the differ- 
ences of sound, are sensible of so various harmony, have con- 
veyed unto our minds the words and thoughts of'^each other: 
that tongue by which we so readily imitate those vast diversi- 



1660-1685.] BARROW. 241 

ties of voice and tune, by which we communicate our minds 
with such ease and advantage; that hand by which we perform 
so many admirable works, and which serves instead of a thou- 
sand instruments and weapons unto us ; to omit those inward 
springs of motion, life, sense, imagination, memory, passion ; 
with so stupendous curiosity contrived : can any reasonable 
man, I say, conceive that so rare a piece, consisting of such 
parts, unexpressibly various, unconceivably curious, the want 
of any of which would discompose or destroy us; subservient 
to such excellent operations, incomparably surpassing all the 
works of the most exquisite art, that we could ever observe or 
conceive, be the product of blind chance ; arise from fortuitous 
jumblings of matter; be effected without exceeding great wis- 
dom, without most deep counsel and design ? Might not the 
most excellent pieces of human artifice, the fairest structures, 
the finest pictures, the most useful engines, such as we are wont 
so much to admire and praise, much more easily happen to be 
without any skill or contrivance? If we cannot allow these 
rude and gross imitations of nature to come of themselves, but 
will presently, so soon as we see them, acknowledge them the 
products of art, though we know not the artist, nor did see him 
work ; how much more reasonable is it that we believe the 
works of nature, so much more fine and accurate, to proceed 
from the like cause, though invisible to us, and performing its 
workmanship by a secret hand ? 

WHAT IS WIT? 

To the question what the thing we speak of is, or what this 
facetiousness doth import? I might reply as Democritus did to 
him that asked the definition of a Man, 'Tis that which we all 
see and know : any one better apprehends what it is by acquaint- 
ance, than I can inform him by description. It is indeed a thing 
so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so 
many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by 
several eyes and judgments, that it seemeth no less hard to settle 
a clear and certain notion thereof, than to make a portrait of 
Proteus, or to define the figure of a fleeting air. Sometimes it 
lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in seasonable applica- 
tion of a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale ; sometimes 
it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from the am- 
biguity of their sense, or the affinity of their sound : sometimes 
it is wrapped in a dress of humorous expression; sometimes it 
16 



242 BARROW. [CHARLES II. 

lurketh under an odd similitude ; sometimes it is lodged in a 
sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a 
shrewd imitation, in cunningly diverting, or cleverly retorting 
an objection : sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of 
speech, in a tart irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in a startling me- 
taphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute 
nonsense : sometimes a scenical representation of persons or 
things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture passeth 
for it: sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a presump- 
tuous bluntness, giveth it being: sometimes it riseth from a 
lucky hitting upon what is strange, sometimes from a crafty 
wresting obvious matter to the purpose : often it consisteth in 
one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. 
Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being answerable 
to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of language. 
It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and plain 
way (such as reason teacheth and proveth things by), which by 
a pretty surprising uncouthness in conceit or expression doth 
affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it some wonder, and 
breeding some delight thereto. 

KNOWLEDGE A SOURCE OF DELIGHT. 

Wisdom of itself is delectable and satisfactory, as it implies 
a revelation of truth and a detection of error to us. 'Tis like 
light, pleasant to behold, casting a sprightly lustre, and diffusing 
a benign influence all about; presenting a goodly prospect of 
things to the eyes of our minds ; displaying objects in their 
due shapes, postures, magnitudes, and colors ; quickening our 
spirits with a comfortable warmth, and disposing our minds to 
a cheerful activity; dispelling the darkness of ignorance, scat- 
tering the mists of doubt; driving away the spectres of delusive 
fancy ; mitigating the cold of sullen melancholy ; discovering 
obstacles, securing progress, and making the passages of life 
clear, open, and pleasant. We are all naturally endowed with 
a strong appetite to know, to see, to pursue truth ; and with a 
bashful abhorrency from being deceived and entangled in mis- 
take. And as success in inquiry after truth affords matter of 
joy and triumph ; so being conscious of error and miscarriage 
therein, is attended with shame and sorrow. These desires 
wisdom in the most perfect manner satisfies, not by entertain- 
ing us with dry, empty, fruitless theories upon mean and vulgar 
subjects ; but by enriching our minds with excellent and useful 



1660-1685.] MARVELL. 243 

knowledge, directed to the noblest objects, and serviceable to 
the highest ends.' 



ANDREW MARVELL, 1620—1678. 

If the intellectual powers of Andrew Marvell be not of the very highest 
order, he is ever to be remembered with admiration for his high moral quali- 
ties. Indeed, for a character in all respects, private, literary and patriotic, so 
uncommonly excellent and noble, is rarely to be met with in the annals of 
history. He was born at Kingston-upon-Hull, in Yorkshire, in 1620, and 
at the age of fifteen entered Cambridge. After leaving the university he 
travelled many years in Europe, and on his return he became assistant 
Latin secretary to Milton, to whom he ever proved a most faithful friend, 
defending his reputation and shielding him from danger after the Resto- 
ration. 

In 1660 he was elected to Parliament by the city of Hull, and was re- 
elected as long as he lived. In his parliamentary duties he exhibited a zeal 
and faithfulness that were never surpassed; constantly corresponding with 
his constituents, and earnestly contending for their public rights and local 
interests. He always voted on the popular side, and so great was his in- 
fluence, that the court determined, if possible, to bribe him to their inte- 
rests. Accordingly they sent his old school-fellow, the lord treasurer 
Danby, to him, with an order for jCjOOO on the treasury. He found him 
in a garret, writing to his constituents. After some conversation, as he 
was going out, he slipped the order into Marvell's hand, who, without looking 
at it, accompanied him to his coach. As he was about driving off, Marvell 
called him back, and they returned to the garret. " My lord," said Mar- 
vell, pointing to a small shoulder-bone of mutton, " Andrew Marvell's 
dinner is provided for; there is your piece of paper ; I want it not. I know 
the sort of kindness you intend, but I live here to serve my constituents; 
the ministry may seek men for their purpose; I am not one." How re- 

^ Bacon, in enumerating the advantages of knowledge, says, 1. It relieves 
man's afflictions. 2. It promotes public virtue and order. 3. It promotes 
private virtues, by humanizing, humbling, nullifying vain admiration, improv- 
ing. 4. It is power. 5. Tlie pleasure of knowledge far exceedeth all other 
pleasures; for, shall the pleasures of the affections so exceed the senses, as 
much as the obtaining of desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner ; and 
must not, of consequence, the pleasures of the intellect or understanding ex- 
ceed the pleasures of the affections? We see in all other pleasures there is 
satiety, and after they be used, their verdure departeth ; which showeth well 
they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures ; and that it was the novelty 
which pleased, and not the quality : and therefore we see that voluptuous men 
turn friars, and ambitious princes turn melancholy. But of knowledge there 
is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable ; 
and therefore appeareth to be good in itself simply, without fallacy or ac- 
cident. 



244 MARVELL. [cHARLES II. 

freshing it is to the eye to look upon a character of such unsullied purity, 
especially if it be in the midst of political life, that perilous arena from 
which so few return without some spots to disfigure their moral vestments.' 

Marvell, from the stern integrity of his character, rendered himself more 
and more obnoxious to a corrupt court. His personal satire against the king 
himself, his tracts against popery and the ministry, and his desperate lite- 
rary battles with Bishop Parker, "that venal apostate to bigotry," (as 
Campbell calls him,) repeatedly endangered his hfe. Among other anony- 
mous letters sent to him, was the following: "If thou darest to print or 
publish any he or libel against Dr. Parker, by the eternal God I will cut 
thy throat." But all this was to no purpose. He pursued the path of duty, 
unfaltering, and stood like a rock amid the foaming ocean. He, at last, 
died suddenly, on the 29th of July, 1678, while attending a public meeting 
at Hull : many supposed that he was poisoned. 

In his prose writings Marvell defended the principles of freedom with 
great vigor of eloquence and Hveliness of humor. He mingled a playful 
exuberance of fancy and figure not unlike that of Burke, with a keenness 
of sarcastic wit not surpassed even by Swift. 

The following spirited irony, on the " doleful evils" of the press, is taken 
from one of his answers to Parker.^ 

For the press hath owed him a shame a long time, and is 
but now beginning to pay oif the debt. The press, (that vil- 
lainous engine,) invented about the same time with the Refor- 
mation, that hath done more mischief to the discipline of our 
church, than all the doctrine can make amends for. 'Twas a 
happy time when all learning was in manuscripts, and some 
little officer, like our author, did keep the keys of the library ; 
when the clergy needed no more knowledge than to read the 
Liturgy ; and the laity no more clerkship than to save them 
from hanging. But now, since printing came into the world, 
such is the mischief, that a man cannot write a book, but pre- 
sently he is answered! Could the press but once be conjured 
to obey only an Imprimatur, our author might not disdain, 
perhaps, to be one of its most zealous patrons. There have 
been ways found out to banish ministers, to fine not only the 
people, but even the grounds and fields where they assembled 
in conventicles. But no art yet could prevent these seditious 
meetings of letters. Two or three brawny fellows in a corner, 
wdth mere ink and elbow-grease, do more harm than an hun- 
dred systematical divines, with their sweaty preaching. And 
which is a strange thing, the very sponges, w^hich one would 

1 Burke and Wilberforce in England, and John Quincy Adams in our 
own country, are eminent exceptions to the general rule. 

2 Two well written articles on Marvell may be found in the 10th and 11th 
vols, of the Retrospective Review. 



1660-1685.] MARVELL. 245 

think should rather deface and blot out the whole book, and 
were anciently used for that purpose, are now become the in- 
struments to make things legible. Their ugly printing-letters, 
that look but like so many rotten teeth ! How oft have they 
been pulled out by the public tooth-drawers ? And yet these 
rascally operators of the press have got a trick to fasten them 
again in a few minutes, that they grow as firm a set, and as 
biting and talkative as ever. Printing 1 how hast thou 
disturbed the peace of mankind ! That lead, when moulded 
into bullets, is not so mortal, as when founded into letters. 
There was a mistake, sure, in the story of Cadmus ; and the 
serpent's teeth, which he sowed, were nothing else but the let- 
ters which he invented. The first essay that was made towards 
this art, was in single characters upon iron, wherewith of old 
they stigmatized slaves and remarkable offenders ; and it was 
of good use sometimes to brand a schismatic. But a bulky 
Dutchman diverted it quite from its first institution, and con- 
trived those innumerable syntagmes of alphabets. One would 
have thought, in reason, that a Dutchman at least might have 
contented himself only with the wine-press. 

The following is a cutting parody on the speeches of Charles II. 

My Lords and Gentlemen, 

I told you, at our last meeting, the Winter was the fittest 
time for business, and truly I thought so, till my lord treasurer 
assured me the Spring was the best season for salads and sub- 
sidies. I hope, therefore, that April will not prove so unnatu- 
ral a month, as not to afford some kind showers on my parched 
exchequer, which gapes for want of them. Some of you, per- 
haps, will think it dangerous to make me too rich; but I do 
not fear it; for I promise you faithfully, whatever you give me 
I will always want ; and although in other things my word 
may be thought a slender authority, yet in that, you may rely 
on me, I will never break it. 
My Lords and Gentlemen, 

I can bear my straits with patience; but my lord treasurer 
does protest to me, that the revenue, as it now stands, will not 
serve him and me too. One of us must pinch for it, if you do 
not help me. I must speak freely to you; I am under bad 
circumstances. Here is my lord treasurer can tell, that all the 
money designed for next Summer's guards must of necessity 
be applied to the next year's cradles and swaddling clothes. 
What shall we do for ships then? I hint this only to you, it 
being your business, not mine. I know, by experience, I can 



246 MARVELL. [cHARLES 11. 

live without ships. I lived ten years abroad without, and 
never had my health better in my life ; but how you Avill be 
without, I leave to yourselves to judge, and therefore hint this 
only by the bye: I do not insist upon it. There is another 
thing I must press more earnestly, and that is this : it seems a 
good part of my revenue will expire in two or three years, 
except you will be pleased to continue it. I have to say for 
it ; pray, why did you give me so much as you have done, 
unless you resolve to give on as fast as I call for it? The 
nation hales you already for giving so much, and I will hate 
you, too, if you do not give me more. So that, if you stick 
not to me, you must not have a friend in England. On the 
other hand, if you will give me the revenue I desire, I shall be 
able to do those things for your religion and liberty, that I have 
had long in my thoughts, but cannot effect them without a little 
more money to carry me through. Therefore look to't, and 
take notice, that if you do not make me rich enough to undo 
you, it shall lie at your doors. For my part, I wash my hands 
on it. 

If you desire more instances of my zeal, I have them for 
you. For example, I have converted my natural sons from 
popery, and I may say without vanity, it was my own work, 
so much the more peculiarly mine than the begetting them. 
'Twould do one's heart good to hear how prettily George can 
read already in the psalter. They are all fine children, God 
bless 'em, and so like me in their understandings ! 

I must now acquaint you, that, by my lord treasurer's ad- 
vice, I have made a considerable retrenchment upon my ex- 
penses in candles and charcoal, and do not intend to stop, but 
will, with your help, look into the late embezzlements of my 
dripping-pans and kitchen-stuff. 

The friendship between Milton and Marvell is one of the most interesting 
subjects in the biography of two of the most noble characters of England. 
Afier the Restoration he contrived various ways to shield him from the rage 
of the reigning powers. As a member of Parliament he made a considerable 
party for him ; and it is probable that his humour contrived the premature 
and mock funeral of Mihon, which is reported, for a time, to have duped 
his enemies into the belief of his real death : and to this manly friendship is 
the world probably indebted for Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, sub- 
sequently completed and published. One of Marvell's sarcastic replies to 
Parker was attributed to Milton ; to which Marvell replies by telling his 
antagonist that " he had not seen John Milton for two years before he com- 
posed his book;" and then he thus characterizes Milton. 

John Milton was, and is, a man of as great learning, and 



1660-1685.] MARVELL. 247 

sharpness of wit, as any man. It was his misfortune, living 
in a tumultuous time, to be tossed on the wrong side ; and he 
wrote, flagrante hello^ certain dangerous treatises. At his 
Majesty's happy return, John Milton did partake, even as you 
did yourself, for all your buffing, of his regal clemency, and 
has ever since expiated himself in a retired silence. It was 
after that, I well remember it, that being one day at his house, 
I there first met you, and accidentally. What discourse you 
there used, he is too generous to remember. But he, never 
having in the least provoked you, for you to insult thus over 
his old age, to traduce him who was born and hath lived much 
more ingenuously and liberally than yourself; to have done all 
this, and lay, at last, my simple book to his charge, without 
ever taking care to inform yourself better, which you had so 
easy opportunity to do; it is inhumanly and inhospitably done, 
and will, I hope, be a warning to all others, as it is to me, to 
avoid (I will not say such a Judas, but) a man that creeps into 
all companies, to jeer, trepan, and betray them. 

Marvell's poetical productions are few, but they display a fancy lively, 
tender, and elegant; " there is much in them that comes from the heart, 
warm, pure, and affectionate." 



THE EMIGRANTS. 

Where the remote Bermudas ride, 
In th' ocean's bosom unespy'd, 
From a small boat that row'd along, 
The list'ning winds receiv'd their song. 

"What should we do, but sing His praise 
That led us through the wat'ry maze, 
Unto an isle so long unknown. 
And yet far kinder than our own! 

"Where he the huge sea-monsters racks 
That lift the deep upon their backs ; 
He lands us on a gi-assy stage, 
Safe from the storms and prelates' rage. 

" He gave us this eternal spring 
Which here enamels every thing, 
And sends the fowls to us in care, 
On daily visits through the air. 



"He hangs in shades the orange bright, 
Like golden lamps in a green night, 
And in these rocks for us did frame 
A temple where to sound his name. 



248 MARVELL. [CHARLES II. 

'' Oh ! let our voice his praise exalt, 
Till it arrive at Heaven's vault ; 
Which then perhaps rebounding may- 
Echo beyond the Mexique bay!"' 

Thus sung they in the English boat, 
A holy and a cheerful note, 
And all the way to guide their chime, 
With falling oars they kept the time. 



THE NYMPH COMPLAINING FOR THE DEATH OF HER FAWN. 

The wanton troopers riding by 
Have shot my fawn, and it will die. 
Ungentle men! they cannot thrive 
Who kiird thee. Thou ne'er didst alive 
Them any harm ; alas! nor could 
Thy death to them do any good. 
I'm sure I never wish'd them ill; 
Nor do I for all this; nor will; 
But, if my simple pray'rs may yet 
Prevail with heaven to forget 
Thy murder, I will join my tears, 
Rather than fail. But, my fears ! 
It cannot die so. Heaven's king 
Keeps register of every thing, 
And nothing may we use in vain: 

Ev'n beasts must be with justice slain. 

* * * * * 

But I am sure, for aught that I 

Could in so short a time espy. 

Thy love was far more better than 

The love of false and cruel man. 

With sweetest milk and sugar first 

I it at my own fingers nurs'd; 

And as it grew, so every day 

It wax'd more white and sweet than they: 

It had so sweet a breath. And oft 

I blush 'd to see its foot more soft 

And white, shall I say than my hand? 

Nay, any lady's of the land. 

It is a wondrous thing how fleet 

'Twas on those little silver feet; 

With what a pretty skipping grace 

It oft would challenge me the race : 

And when't had left me far away, 

'Twould stay, and run again, and stay: 

For it was nimbler much than hinds, 

And trod as if on the four winds. 

I have a garden of my own. 

But so with roses overgrown, 

And lilies, that you would it guess 

To be a little wilderness. 



1660-1685.] BUTLER. 249 

And all the spring time of the year 

It only loved to be there. 

Among the beds of lilies I 

Have sought it oft where it should lie, 

Yet could not, till itself would rise, 

Find it, although before mine eyes; 

For in the flaxen lilies' shade 

It like a bank of lilies laid ; 

Upon the roses it would feed 

Until its lips e'en seem'd to bleed; 

And then to me 'twould boldly trip, 

And print these roses on my lip. 

But all its chief delight was still 

On roses thus itself to fill, 

And its pure virgin limbs to fold 

In whitest sheets of lilies cold. 

Had it lived long it would have been 

Lilies without, roses within. 



SAMUEL BUTLER, 1612—1680. 

As Andrew Marvell was the leading prose wit of the reign of Charles 
Second, so Samuel Butler was the author of the best burlesque poem in the 
language. He was born at Strensham, in Worcestershire, in 1612. It can- 
not be ascertained whether he enjoyed a university education or not ; but 
his writings show that his scholarship, however acquired, was both varied 
and profound. In early life he was employed as a clerk to the county 
magistrate of Worcestershire, where he enjoyed ample leisure for reading 
and meditation ; and afterwards in the household of the Countess of Kent, 
where he had the use of an ample Ubrary, which he did not fail to improve. 
Hence, he went into the employment of Sir Samuel Luke, one of Crom- 
well's officers, where he saw much of the unfavourable side of the Puritans; 
and here, it is supposed, he first conceived the idea of his satirical epic upon 
them. The first part of the poem was published three years after the Re- 
storation ; and though it was the delight of the court, and quoted every- 
where and in all circles, the poet reaped nothing but empty praise. In 1664, 
the second part was pubUshed, but still no pecuniary reward was received 
from the court, for whom he chiefly wrote, and to whose gratification he 
chiefly contributed. It was not till 1678 that the third part appeared, and in 
1680 he died, and so poor was he, that he was buried at the sole expense of 
a friend, in a churchyard, after a place in Westminster Abbey had been 
refused. But what gratitude, or any noble feeling could be expected from 
Charles the Second, or any of his licentious court? 

The poem of Hudibras is unique in European Literature. It was evi- 
dently suggested by the adventures of Don Quixote ; for as Cervantes sent 
forth his hero upon a chivalrous crusade to right wrongs, and redress griev* 



250 BUTLER. [cHARLES II. 

ances, in order to bring the institution of chivalry, of which he claims to be 
the personification, into contempt ; so Sir Hudibras, claiming to be a repre- 
sentative of the true Presbyterian character, goes forth "a colonelling," 
against all those popular sports, of which the Puritans of the day had such a 
holy horror, to make this sect appear in the most ridiculous light. But 
the Puritan of Butler is an aggravated caricature, rather than a faithful por- 
trait,' and though the poem possesses " an excess of wit, rhymes the most 
original and ingenious, and the most apt and burlesque metaphors, couched 
in an easy, gossiping, colloquial metre ; yet it would be as impossible to 

^ The following, on the character of the Puritans, is taken from an article 
on Milton in the 42d vol. of the Edinburgh Review : an article to which, for 
its discriminating truth and impassioned eloquence, I know nothing superior 
in English literature. 

" The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from 
the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests. Not content 
with acknowledging, in general terms, an overruling Providence, they habitu- 
ally ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power no- 
thing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know 
him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them the great end of existence. 
They rejected with contempt the ceremonious homage which oiher sects sub- 
stituted for the pure worship of the soul. If they were unacquainted with 
the works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles 
of God. If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they felt 
assured that they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not 
accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had 
charge over them. Their palaces were houses not made with hands; their 
diadems crowns of glory which should never fade away ! On the rich and 
the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with contempt: for 
they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in 
a more sublime language, nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and 
priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. 

" The Puritan indeed was made up of two different men, the one all self- 
abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion ; the other proud, calm, inflexible, 
sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker: but he set 
his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement he prayed with 
convulsions, and groans, and tears. People who saw nothing of the godly 
but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans and 
their whining hymns, might laugh at them. But those had little reason to 
laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate or in the field of battle. 
These fanatics brought to civil and military affairs a coolness of judgment, 
and an immutability of purpose, which some writers have thought inconsistent 
with their religious zeal, but which were in fact the necessary effects of it. 
The intensity of their feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every 
other. One overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and hatred, 
ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors, and pleasure its charms. They 
had their smiles and their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not for 
the things of this world. 

" Such we believe to have been the character of the Puritans. We perceive 
the absurdity of their manners. We dislike the sullen gloom of their domestic 
habits. We acknowledge that the tone of their minds was often injured by 
straining after things too high for mortal reach : and we know that in spite o'f 
their hatred of popery, they too often fell into the worst vices of that bad 
system, intolerance and extravagant austerity. Yet. when all circumstances 
are taken into consideration, we do not hesitate to pronounce them a brave, 
a wise, an honest, and a useful body." 



1660-1685.] BUTLER. 251 

read Hudibras to an end at once, as to dine on cayenne or pickles. It ad- 
ministers no food to the higher and more permanent feehngs of the human 
mind. The moral comes to be felt to be without dignity, the wit without 
gaiety or relief, the story lagging and flat. Even the rhymes, amusing as 
they are, become after a time, like the repetitions of a mimic, tiresome and 
stale." 

DESCRIPTION OF HUDIBRAS. 

When civil dudgeon first grew high, 

And men fell out, they knew not why ; 

When hard words, jealousies, and fears, 

Set folks together by the ears, 

And made them fight, like mad or drunk. 

For Dame Religion as for punk ; 

Whose honesty they all durst swear for. 

Though not a man of them knew wherefore ; 

When gospel-trumpeter, surrounded 

With long-ear'd rout, to battle sounded; 

And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic. 

Was beat with fist instead of a stick -A 

Then did Sir Knight2 abandon dwelUng, 

And out he rode a-colonelling. 

A wight he w^as, whose very sight would 

Entitle him mirror of knighthood, 

That never bow'd his stubborn knee^ 

To any thing but chivalry, 

Nor put up blow, but that which laid 

Right worshipful on shoulder-blade. 

But here some authors make a doubt 

Whether he were more wise or stout; 

Some hold the one, and some the other, 

But, howsoe'er they make a pother. 

The difi"rence was so small, his brain 

Outweigh'd his rage but half a grain ; 

Which made some take hiin for a tool 

That knaves do w^ork with, called a fool : 

We grant, although he had much wat, 

H' was very shy of using it. 

As being loth to wear it out. 

And therefore bore it not about ; 

Unless on holidays or so. 

As men their best apparel do. 

Beside, 'tis known he could speak Greek 

As naturally as pigs squeak; 

'■ The speaking of a stick as one word, with the stress upon a, heightens 
the burlesque, and consequently is rather an excellency than a fault. 

^ Butllr's hero. Sir Samuel Luke, was not only a colonel in the Parliament 
army, but also Scoutmaster-General in the counties of Bedford, Surrey, &c. 

^ That is, he kneeled to the king when he knighted him, but seldom upon 
any other occasion. 



252 BUTLER. [CHARLES II. 

That Latin was no more difficile' 
Than to a blackbird 'tis to wliistle. 

HIS LOGIC. 

He was in logic a great critic, 

Profoundly skill'd in analytic: 

He could distinguish, and divide 

A hair 'twixt south and south-west side; 

On either which he would dispute, 

Confute, change hands, and still confute : 

He'd undertake to prove, by force 

Of argument, a man's no horse; 

He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl, 

And that a lord may be an owl ; 

A calf an alderman, a goose a justice. 

And rooks committee-men and trustees. 

He'd run in debt by disputation. 

And pay with ratiocination: 

All this by syllogism true, 

In mood and figure he would do. 

For rhetoric, he could not ope 

His mouth but out there flew a trope : 

And when he happen'd to break off 

r th' middle of his speech, or cough, 

H' had hard words ready to show why, 

And tell what rules he did it by; 

Else when with greatest art he spoke. 

You'd think he talk'd like other folk; 

For all a rhetorician's rules 

Teach nothing but to name his tools. 

But when he plcas'd to show't, his speech, 

In loftiness of sound, was rich; 

A Babylonish dialect, 

Which learned pedants much aflfect; 

It w^as a party-coloured dress 

Of patch'd and piebald languages ; 

'Twas English cut on Greek and Latin, 

Like fustian heretofore on satin ; 

It had an odd promiscuous tone. 

As if h' had talk'd three parts in one ; 

Which made some think, when he did gabble, 

Th' had heard three labourers of Babel, 

Or Cerberus himself pronounce 

A leash of languages at once. 

» Sancho Panza says of Don Quixote, "that he is a main scolard, Latins 
it hugely, and talks his own mother tongue as well as one of your Varsity 
Doctors.'' 



1660-1685.] BUTLER, 253 



HIS MATHEMATICS, 

In Mathematics he was greater 
Than Tycho Brahe< or Erra Pater f 
For he, by geometric scale, 
Could take the size of pots of ale ;3 
Resolved by sines and tangents straight 
If bread or butter wanted weight ; 
And wisely tell what hour o' th' day 
The clock does strike, by algebra. 

HIS METAPHTSICS. 

Beside, he was a shrewd philosopher, 
And had read ev'ry text and gloss over ; 
Whate'er the crabbed'st author hath, 
He understood b' implicit faith : 
Whatever sceptic could enquire for, 
For ev'ry why he had a wherefore ; 
Knew more than forty of them do, 
As far as words and terms could go 5 
All which he understood by rote. 
And, as occasion serv'd, would quote ; 
No matter whether right or wrong; 
They might be either said or sung. 
His notions fitted things so well. 
That which M^as which he could not teil, 
But oftentimes mistook the one 
For th' other, as great clerks have done. 
He knew what's what,4 and that's as high 
As metaphysic wit can fly : 
He could raise scruples dark and nice, 
And after solve 'em in a trice ; 
As if Divinity had catch 'd 
The itch, on purpose to be scratched; 
Or, like a mountebank, did wound. 
And stab herself with doubts profound, 
Only to show with how small pain 
The sores of Faith are cur'd again ; 
Although by woful proof we find 
They always leave a scar behind, 

' " Tycho Brahe" was an eminent Danish mathematician. 

- By " Erra Pater," it is thought that Butler alluded to one William Lilly- 
a famous astrologer of those times. 

' As a justice of the peace he had a right to inspect weights and measures. 

* A ridicule on the senseless questions in the common systems of logic, 
as, quid est quid? whence came the common proverbial expression of hf 
knows what'S what, to denote a shrewd man. 



254 BUTLER. [CHARLES II 



HIS RELIGION. 

For his religion, it was fit 
To match his learning and his wit ; 
'Twas Presbyterian true blue ; 
For he was of that stubborn crew 
Of errant saints, wliom all men grant 
To be the true church militant; 
Such as do build their faith upon 
The holy text of pike and gun; 
Decide all controversies by 
Infallible artillery; 
And prove their doctrine orthodox 
By apostolic blows and knocks; 
Call fire and sword, and desolation, 
A godly thorough Reformation, 
Which always must be carryd on, 
And still be doing, never done; 
As if religion were intended 
For nothing else but to be mended : 
A sect whose chief devotion lies 
In odd perverse antipathies; 
In falling out M'ith that or this, 
And finding somewhat still amiss ; 
More peevish, cross, and splenetic. 
Than dog distract or monkey sick; 
That with more care kept holiday 
The wrong, than others the right way; 
Compound for sins they are inclined to, 
By damning those they have no mind to. 



HIS APPAHEL. 

His doublet was of sturdy buff, 
And though not sword, yet cudgel-proof, 
Whereby 'twas fitter for his use, 
Who fear"d no blows but such as bruise. 

His breeches were of rugged Avoollen, 
And had been at the siege of Bu lien;' 
To old King Harry so well known. 
Some writers held they were bis own: 
Though they were lined with many a piece 
Of ammunition bread and cheese, 
And fat black-puddings, proper food 
For warriors that delight in blood : 
For, as we said, he always chose 
To carry victual in his hose. 
That often tempted rats and mice 
The ammunition to surprise; 

' Boulogne was besieged by King Henry VIII., July 14, 1544, and surren- 
dered in September. 



1660-1685.] BUTLER. 255 

And when he put a hand but in 
The one or t'other magazine, 
They stoutly on defence on't stood, 
And from the wounded foe drew blood. 



HIS SWOBD, DAGGER, AKD PISTOLS. 

His puissant sword unto his side, 
Near his undaunted heart was ty'd, 
With basket hilt that would hold broth, 
And served for fight and dinner both ; 
In it he melted lead for bullets 
To shoot at foes, and sometimes pullets, 
To whom he bore so fell a grutch, 
He ne'er gave quarter to any such. 
The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty. 
For want of fighting was grown rusty, 
And ate into itself, for lack 
Of somebody to hew and hack : 
The peaceful scabbard, where it dwelt. 
The rancour of its edge had felt; 
For of the lower end two handful 
It had devour'd 'twas so manful. 
And so much scorn'd to lurk in case. 
As if it durst not show its face. 

This sword a dagger had, his page, 
That was but little for his age. 
And therefore waited on him so. 
As dwarfs upon knights-errant do : 
It was a serviceable dudgeon, 
Either for fighting or for drudging: 
When it had stabb'd, or broke a head. 
It would scrape trenchers, or chip bread ; 
Toast cheese or bacon, though it were 
To bait a mouse-trap, 'twould not care ; 
'Twould make clean shoes, and in the earth 
Set leeks and onions, and so forth : 
It had been 'prentice to a brewer. 
Where this and more it did endure, 
But left the trade, as many more 
Have lately done on the same score. 

In th' holsters, at his saddle-bow, 
Two aged pistols he did stow. 
Among the surplus of such meat 
As in his hose he could not get ; 
These would inveigle rats with th' scent. 
To forage when the cocks were bent, 
And sometimes catch 'em with a snap, 
As cleverly as the ablest trap : 
They were upon hard duty still, 
And every night stood centinel. 



256 BUTLER. [cHARLES II. 

To guard the magazine i' th' hose 

From two-legg'd and from four-legg'd foes. 

Such are a few specimens of Butler's wit as displayed in his poetry. The 
same vein runs through his prose works, which were not published till a 
considerable time after his death. We can give but one specimen. 



A SMALL POET 

Is one that would fain make himself that which nature never 
meant him ; like a fanatic that inspires himself with his own 
whimsies. He sets up haberdasher of small poetry, with a 
very small stock, and no credit. He believes it is invention 
enough to find out other men's wit ; and whatsoever he lights 
upon, either in books or company, he makes bold with as his 
own. This he puts together so untowardly, that you may per- 
ceive his own wit has the rickets, by the swelling disproportion 
of the joints. You may know his wit not to be natural, 'tis so 
unquiet and troublesome in him : for as those that have money 
but seldom, are always shaking their pockets when they have 
it, so does he, when he thinks he has got something that will 
make him appear. He is a perpetual talker ; and you may 
know by the freedom of his discourse that he came lightly by 
it, as thieves spend freely what they get. He is like an Italian 
thief, that never robs but he murders, to prevent discovery ; so 
sure is he to cry down the man from whom he purloins, that 
his petty larceny of wit may pass unsuspected. He appears so 
over-concerned in all men's wits, as if they were but disparage- 
ments of his own ; and cries down all they do, as if they Avere 
encroachments upon him. He takes jests from the owners and 
breaks them, as justices do false weights, and pots that want 
measure. When he meets with anything that is very good, he 
changes it into small money, like three groats for a shilling, to 
serve several occasions. He disclaims study, pretends to take 
things in motion, and to shoot flying, which appears to be very 
true, by his often missing of his mark. As for epithets, he al- 
ways avoids those that are near akin to the sense. Such matches 
are unlawful, and not fit to be made by a Christian poet ; and 
therefore all his care is to choose out such as will serve, like a 
wooden leg, to piece out a maimed verse that wants a foot or 
two, and if they will but rhyme now and then into the bargain. 
or run upon a letter, it is a work of supererogation. For simi- 
litudes he likes the hardest, and most obscure best ; for as ladies 
wear black patches to make their complexions seem fairer than 
thev are, so when an illustration is more obscure than the sense 



1660-1685.] BROWNE. • 257 

that went before it, it must of necessity make it appear clearer 
than it did ; for contraries are best sort off with contraries. He 
has found out a new set of poetical Georgics — a trick of sow- 
ing wit like clover-grass on barren subjects, which would yield 
nothing before. This is very useful for the times, wherein, 
some men say, there is no room left for new invention. He 
will take three grains of wit, like the elixir, and, projecting it 
upon the iron age, turn it immediately into gold. All the busi- 
ness of mankind has presently vanished, the whole world has 
kept holiday ; there has been no men but heroes and poets, no 
women but nymphs and shepherdesses ; trees have borne frit- 
ters, and rivers flowed plum-porridge. When he writes, he 
commonly steers the sense of his lines by the rhymes that is 
at the end of them, as butchers do calves by the tail. For when 
he has made one line, which is easy enough, and has found out 
some sturdy hard word that will but rhyme, he will hammer 
the sense upon it, like a piece of hot iron upon an anvil, into 
what form he pleases. There is no art in the world so rich in 
terms as poetry; a whole dictionary is scarce able to contain 
them ; for there is hardly a pond, a sheep-walk, or a gravel-pit 
in all Greece, but the ancient name of it is become a term of 
art in poetry. By this means, small poets have such a stock 
of able hard words lying by them, as dryades, hamadryades, 
aonides, fauni, nymphae, sylvani, &c., that signify nothing at 
all ; and such a world of pedantic terms of the same kind, as 
may serve to furnish all the new inventions and " thorough re- 
formations" that can happen between this and Plato's great 
year. 



SIR THOMAS BROWNE, 1605—1682. 

One of the most original as well as learned men of the reign of Charles 
II,, was Sir Thomas Browne. He was born in London in 1605, and in 
1623 he entered Oxford, intending to devote himself to the study of medicine. 
Having taken his degree, he practised physic for some time in Oxfordshire. 
He then went abroad, and travelled in France, Italy and Holland; and at 
Leyden he took the degree of doctor of physic. Returning to England in 
1634, he settled at Norwich, and on account of his great reputation as a 
physician he was, a few years after, made honorary fellow of the Royal 
College of Physicians in London. He was knighted in 1671 by Charles the 
Second, in his progress through Norwich, with singular marks of considera- 
tion ; and died in 1682. 

The following are the principal productions of Sir Thomas Browne, 1, 
17 



258 BROWNE. [cHARLES II. 

The Eellgio Medici, or the Rehgion of a Physician. It is divided into two 
parts; the first containing his confession of faith, that is, all his curious reh- 
gious opinions and feehngs; the second, a confession of charity; that is, all 
his human feelings. ' 2. His Fseudodoxia Epidemica, more generally known 
by the title of " Browne's Vulgar Errors." This is the most popular of all 
his works. He treats his subject very methodically, dividing the whole 
into seven books, considering the various errors as they arise from minerals 
and vegetables, animals, man, pictures, geography, philosophy and history. 
Notwithstanding the singularity and quaintness which pervade this work, it 
is one that displays great learning and penetration, and is very interesting. 
3. Another production was entitled, ^' Hydriotaphia, Urn-Burial; or a Dis- 
course of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk." " In this work," 
says an able critic, 2 " Sir Thomas Browne hath dared to take the grave itself 
for his theme. He deals not with death as a shadow, but as a substantial 
reality. He dwells not on it as a mere cessation of life — he treats it not as 
a terrible negation — but enters on its discussion as a state with its own 
solemnities and pomps." 

Dr. Johnson has described Browne's style with much critical acumen. 
" It is," says he, "vigorous but rugged; it is learned, but pedantic; it is 
deep, but obscure; it strikes, but does not please; it commands, but does 
not allure : his tropes are harsh, and his combinations uncouth. He fell into 
an age in which our language began to lose the stability whijch it had obtained 
in the time of Elizabeth ; and was considered by every writer as a subject on 
which he might try his plastic skill, by moulding it according to his own 
fancy. His style is, indeed, a tissue of many languages ; a mixture of hetero- 
geneous words, brought together from distant regions, with terms originally 
appropriate to one art, and drawn by violence into the service of another."^ 



THOUGHTS ON DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. 

[JProm his " Hydriotaphia.'''] 

In a field of Old Walsingham, not many months past, were 
digged up between forty and fifty urns, deposited in a dry and 
sandy soil, not a yard deep, not far from one another : not all 
strictly of one figure, but most answering these described ; some 
containing two pounds of bones, distinguishable in skulls, ribs, 

* Of this, Dr. Johnson, in his life of Browne, thus remarks : " The Religio 
Medici was no sooner published than it excited the attention of the public by 
the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of sentiment, the quick succession of 
images, the multitude of abstruse allusions, the subtlety of disquisition, and 
the strength of language." 

2 For an interesting notice of this singular work, see Retrospective Review, 
vol. i. p. 84. 

3 But Dr. Johnson himself did not scruple to transfer to his own pages many 
of Browne's ponderous words; for, as Cumberland truly says of him, 

'< He forced Latinisms into his lines, 
Like raw, undrilled recruits." 



1660-1685.] BROWNE. 259 

jaws, thigh-bones, and teeth, with fresh impressions of their 
combustion. Besides, the extraneous substances, like pieces of 
small boxes, or combs handsomely wrought, handles of small 
brass instruments, brazen nippers, and in one some kind of 
opal. 

That these were the urns of Romans, from the common cus- 
tom and place where they were found, is no obscure conjec- 
ture ; not far from a Roman garrison, and but five miles from 
Brancaster, set down by ancient record under the name of 
Brannodunum. And where the adjoining town, containing 
seven parishes, in no very different sound, but Saxon termina- 
tion, still retains the name of Burnham, which being an early 
station, it is not improbable the neighbor parts were filled with 
habitations, either of Romans themselves, or Britons Roman- 
ized, which observed the Roman customs. 

What song the syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed 
when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, 
are not beyond all conjecture. What time the persons of these 
ossuaries entered the famous nations of the dead, and slept with 
princes and counsellors, might admit a wide solution. But who 
were the proprietaries of these bones, or what bodies these 
ashes made up, were a question above antiquarism. Not to be 
resolved by man, not easily perhaps by spirits, except we con- 
sult the provincial guardians, or tutelary observators. Had they 
made as good provision for their names, as they have done for 
their relics, they had not so grossly erred in the art of perpetua- 
tion. But to subsist in bones, and be but pyramidally extant, 
is a fallacy in duration — vain ashes, which in the oblivion of 
names, persons, times, and sexes, have found unto themselves 
a fruitless continuation, and only arise unto late posterity, as 
emblems of mortal vanities, antidotes against pride, vain-glory, 
and madding vices. 

But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and 
deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of 
perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the pyramids ? 
Herostratus lives, that burnt the temple of Diana; he is almost 
lost that built it. Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's 
horse, confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our 
felicities by the advantage of our good names, since bad have 
equal durations; and Thersites is like to Uve as long as Aga- 
memnon, without the favor of the everlasting register. Who 
knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there 
be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand re- 
membered in the known account of time? The first man had 



2@& BROWNE. [cHARLES II. 

been as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long life had 
been his only chronicle. 

There is nothing strictly immortal, but immortality. What- 
ever hath no beginning, may be confident of no end. All others 
have a dependent being, and within the reach of destruction, 
which is the peculiar of that necessary essence that cannot 
destroy itself, and the highest strain of omnipotency, to be so 
powerfully constituted, as not to suffer even from the power of 
itself. But the sufficiency of Christian immortality frustrates 
all earthly glory, and the quality of either state after death makes 
a folly of posthumous memory. 

Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in 
the grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre. 

To subsist in lasting monuments, to live in their productions, 
to exist in their names, and predicament of chimeras, was large 
satisfaction unto old expectations, and made one part of their 
elysiums. But all this is nothing in the metaphysics of true 
belief. To live indeed is to be again ourselves, which being 
not only an hope, but an evidence in noble believers, it is all 
one to lie in St. Innocent's' churchyard, as in the sands of 
Egypt; ready to be anything in the ecstasy of being ever, and 
as content with six foot as the moles of Adrianus.^ 



THE STUDENT. 

The world was made to be inhabited by beasts, but studied 
and contemplated by man ; 'tis the debt of our reason we owe 
unto God, and the homage we pay for not being beast ; without 
this the world is still as though it had not been, or as it was 
before the sixth day when as yet there was not a creature that 
could conceive, or say there was a world. The wisdom of God 
receives small honor from those vulgar heads that rudely stare 
about, and with a gross rusticity admire his works; those highly 
magnify him whose judicious inquiry into his acts, and delibe- 
rate research into his creatures, return the duty of a devout and 
learned admiration.'' 

'■ In Paris, where bodies soon consume. 

2 A stately mausoleum, or sepulchral pile, built by Adrianus in Rome, 
where now standeth the castle of St. Angelo. 

3 <' The things for which I hold life valuable, are the satisfaction that accrues 
from the improvement of knowledge and the exercise of piety." — Sir Robert 
Boyle. 



1660-1685.] BROWNE. 261 



PRIDE. 

I thank God amongst those millions of vices I do inherit and 
hold from Adam, I have escaped one, and that a mortal enemy 
to charity, the first and father sin, not only of man, but of the 
devil, — pride; a vice whose name is comprehended in a mono- 
syllable, but in its nature not circumscribed with a world ; I 
have escaped it in a condition that can hardly avoid it; those 
petty acquisitions and reputed perfections that advance and ele- 
vate the conceits of other men, add no feathers into mine ; I 
have seen a grammarian tour and plume himself over a single 
line in Horace, and show more pride in the construction of one 
ode, than the author in the composure of the whole book. For 
my own part, besides the jargon and patois of several provinces, 
I understand no less than six languages ; yet I protest I have 
no higher conceit of myself, than had our fathers before the 
confusion of Babel, when there was but one language in the 
world, and none to boast himself either linguist or critic. I 
have not only seen several countries, beheld the nature of their 
climes, the chorography of their provinces, topography of their 
cities, but understood their several laws, customs and policies ; 
yet cannot all this persuade the dulness of my spirit unto such 
an opinion of myself, as I behold in nimbler and conceited 
heads, that never looked a degree beyond their nests. I know 
the names, and somewhat more, of all the constellations in my 
horizon ; yet I have seen a prating mariner that could only 
name the pointers and the North star, out-talk me, and conceit 
himself a whole sphere above me. I know most of the plants 
of my country, and of those about me; yet methinks I do not 
know so many as when I did but know a hundred, and had 
scarcely ever simpled further than Cheapside; for indeed heads 
of capacity, and such as are not full with a handful, or easy 
measure of knowledge, think they know nothing till they know 
all; which being impossible, they fall upon the opinion of 
Socrates, and only know they know not anything.' 

^ SOLILOQUIES OF THE OLD PHILOSOPHER AND THE YOUNG LADY. 

" Alas !" exclaimed a silver-headed sage, " how narrow is the utmost ex- 
tent of human knowledge! how circumscribed the sphere of intellectual 
exertion ! I have spent my life in acquiring knowledge, but how little do I 
know ! The farther I attempt to penetrate the secrets of nature, the more I 
am bewildered and benighted. Beyond a certain limit all is but confusion or 
conjecture : so that the advantage of the learned over the ignorant consists 
greatly in having ascertained how little is to be known. 

" It is true that I can measure the sun, and compute the distances of the 



262 BROAVNE. [CHARLES II. 

As a specimen of his worst Latinized English we give the following from 
his " Vulgar Errors." He notices ihe custom of foreteUing events by spots 
upon the nails in this curious manner : 

That temperamental dignotions, and conjecture of prevalent 
humors, may be collected from spots in our nails, we are not 
averse to concede. But yet not ready to admit sundry divina- 
tions, vulgarly raised upon them. 

planets ; I can calculate their periodical movements ; and even ascertain the 
laws by which they perform their sublime revolutions: but with regard to 
their construction, to the beings which inhabit them, of their condition and 
circumstances, whether natural or moral, what do I know more than the 
clown ? 

"I remark that all bodies, unsupported, fall to the ground; and I am 
taught to account for this by the law of gravitation. But what have I gained 
here more than a term ? Does it convey to my mind any idea of the nature 
of that mysterious and invisible chain which draws all things to a common 
centre ? I observed the effect, I gave a name to the cause, but can I explain 
or comprehend it? 

" Pursuing the tract of the naturalist, I have learned to distinguish the 
animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms: and to divide them into their dis- 
tinct tribes and families: — but can I tell, after all this toil, whence a single 
blade of grass derives its vitality? — Could the most minute researches enable 
me to discover the exquisite pencil that paints and fringes the tlower of the 
field ? — have I ever detected the secret that gives their brilliant dye to the 
ruby and the emerald, or the art that enamels the delicate shell ? 

" Alas ! then, what have I gained by my laborious researches but a humili- 
ating conviction of my weakness and ignorance ? of how little has man, at his 
best estate, to boast? what folly in him to glory in his contracted powers, or 
to value himself upon his imperfect acquisitions?" 

''Well !" exclaimed a young lady, just returned from school, "my educa- 
tion is at last finished: indeed it would be strange, if, after five years' hard 
application, anything were left incomplete. Happily that is all over now ; 
and I have nothing to do but to exercise my various accomplishments. 

" Let me see! — as to French, I am mistress of that, and speak it, if possi- 
ble, with more fluency than English. Italian I can read with ease, and pro- 
nounce very well : as well at least, and better, than any of my friends : and 
that is all one need wish for in Italian. Music I have learned till I am per- 
fectly sick of it. But, now that we have a grand piano, it will be delightful 
to play when we have company. I must still continue to practise a little ; — 
the only thing, I think, that I need now to improve myself in. And then 
there are my Italian songs! which everybody allows I sing with taste, and it 
is what so fevv^ people can pretend to, I am particularly glad that I can. 

" My drawings are universally admired ; especially the shells and flowers ; 
which are beautiful, certainly; besides this, I have a decided taste in all 
kinds of fancy ornaments. 

"And then my dancing and waltzing ! in which our master himself owned 
that he could take me no further! — ^just the figure for it certainly; it would 
be unpardonable if I did not excel. 

" As to common things, geography, and history, and poetry, and philoso- 
phy, thank my stars, I have got through them all ! so that I may consider 
myself not only perfectly accomplished, but also thoroughly well informed. 

" Welt, to be sure how much have I fagged through ; the only wonder is, 
that one head can contain it all !" 



1660-1685.] WALTON. 263 

And again ; 

Of lower consideration is the common foretelling of strangers 
from the fungous parcel, about the weeks of candies : which 
only signifieth a moist and pluvious ayr about them, hindering 
the avolation of the light and favillous particles. 



IZAAK WALTON, 1593—1683. 

IzAAK Walton, the " Father of Angling," was born at Stafford in 1593. 
Of his early education Uttle is known ; but having acquired a moderate 
competency in business in London, as a linen-draper, he retired from busi- 
ness in 1643, at the age of fifty, and lived forty years after, in uninterrupted 
leisure, dying in 1683, in the ninetieth year of his age, exhibiting a striking 
proof how much calm pursuits, with a mind pure and at ease, contribute to 
prolong the period of human existence. 

Walton is celebrated as a biographer, and particularly as an angler. His 
first work was the life of Dr. John Donne, published in 1640. On the death 
of Sir Henry Wotton, he published a collection of his works, with a life 
prefixed. His next Life was that of Dr. Richard Hooker, author of the 
" Ecclesiastical Polity ;" and soon after he wrote the hfe of George Herbert. 
All these were collected in 1670 and published in one volume. It was one 
of Dr. Johnson's most favorite books. 

But the work by which he is most known is, " The Complete Angler, 
or Contemplative Man's Recreation," a work, which, to use the words of 
Sir Harris Nicolas, " whether considered as a treatise on the art of angling, 
or a beautiful pastoral, abounding in exquisite descriptions of rural scenery, 
in sentiments of the purest morality, and in unaffected love of the Creator 
and his works, has long been ranked among the most popular compositions 
in our language." In writing it, he says he made a " recreation of a recrea- 
tion," and, by mingling innocent mirth and pleasant scenes with the graver 
parts of his discourse, he designed it as a picture of his own disposition. 
The work is, indeed, essentially autobiographical in spirit and execution. 
It is in the form of a dialogue : a Hunter and a Falconer are introduced as 
parties in it, but the whole interest of the piece centres in the venerable and 
complacent Piscator. The three meet accidentally near London, on a " fine 
fresh May" morning, and they agree each to " commend his recreation" or 
favorite pursuit. Piscator allows the Falconer to take the lead, who thus 
commends the sport of his choice : 

And first for the element I used to trade in, which is the air; 
an element of more worth than weight, an element that doubt- 
less exceeds both the earth and water : for though I sometimes 
deal in both, yet the air is most properly mine. I and my 
hawks use that, and it yields us most recreation. It stops not 
the high soaring of my noble, generous falcon. In it she ascends 



264 WALTON. [cHARLES II. 

to such a height as the dull eyes of beasts and fish are not able 
to reach to ; their bodies are too gross for such high elevations. 
In the air, my troops of hawks soar up on high, and when they 
are lost in the sight of men, then they attend upon and converse 
with the gods. Therefore I think my eagle is so justly styled 
Jove's servant in ordinary ; and that very falcon, that I am now 
going to see, deserves no meaner a title, for she usually in her 
flight endangers herself, like the son of Daedalus, to have her 
wings scorched by the sun's heat, she flies so near it. But her 
mettle makes her careless of danger ; for then she heeds no- 
thing, but makes her nimble pinions cut the fluid air, and so 
makes her highway over the steepest mountains and deepest 
rivers, and in her glorious career looks with contempt upon 
those high steeples and magnificent palaces which we adore 
and wonder at ; from which height I can make her to descend 
by a word from my mouth, which she both knows and obeys, 
to accept of meat from my hand, to own me for her master, to 
go home with me, and be willing the next day to afford me the 
like recreation. * * 

Nay more, the very birds of the air, those that be not hawks, 
are both so many, and so useful and pleasant to mankind, that 
I must not let them pass without some observations, * * 
As first the lark, when she means to rejoice; to cheer herself 
and those that hear her, she then quits the earth, and sings as 
she ascends higher into the air ; and having ended her heavenly 
employment, grows then mute and sad to think she must de- 
scend to the dull earth, which she would not touch but from 
necessity. 

How do the blackbird and thrassel with their melodious 
voices bid welcome to the cheerful spring, and in their fixed 
months warble forth such ditties as no art or instrument can 
reach to ! 

Nay, the smaller birds also do the like in their particular 
seasons, as, namely, the leverock, the tit-lark, the little linnet, 
and the honest robin, that loves mankind both alive and dead. 

But the nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes 
such sweet loud music, out of her little instrumental throat, that 
it may make mankind to think miracles are not ceased. He that 
at midnight, when the very laborer sleeps securely, should hear 
as I have, very often, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the 
natural rising and falling, the doubling and redoubling of her 
voice, might well be lifted above earth, and say. Lord, what 
music hast thou provided for the saints in heaven, when thou 
aff'ordest bad men such music on earth ! * * 



1660-1685.] WALTON. 265 

There is also a little contemptible winged creature, an in- 
habitant of my aerial element, namely, the laborious bee, of 
whose prudence, policy, and regular government of their own 
commonwealth, I might say much, as also of their several kinds, 
and how useful their honey and wax is, both for meat and 
medicines to mankind ; but I will leave them to their sweet 
labor, without the least disturbance, believing them to be all 
very busy at this very time amongst the herbs and flowers that 
we see nature puts forth this May-morning. 

The lover of hunting next takes his turn, and then in the fourth Dialogue 
or Chapter, the Angler thus speaks : 

Look ! under that broad beech-tree I sat down, when I was 
last this way a-fishing, and the birds in the adjoining groves 
seemed to have a friendly contention with an echo, whose dead 
voice seemed to live in a hollow tree, near to the brow of that 
primrose hill; there I sat viewing the silver streams glide 
silently towards their centre, the tempestuous sea ; yet some- 
times opposed by rugged roots and pebble stones, which broke 
their waves and turned them into foam : and sometimes I be- 
guiled time by viewing the harmless lambs, some leaping 
securely in the cool shade, whilst others sported themselves in 
the cheerful sun ; and saw others craving comfort from the 
swollen udders of their bleating dams. As I thus sat, these 
and other sights had so fully possessed my soul with content, 
that I thought, as the poet has happily expressed it : 

I was for that time lifted above earth ; 

And possessed joys not promised in my birth. 

As I left this place and entered into the next field, a second 
pleasure entertained me ; 'twas a handsome milk-maid, that had 
not yet attained so much age and wisdom as to load her mind 
with any fears of many things that will never be, as too many 
men too often do ; but she cast away all care, and sung like a 
nightingale; her voice was good, and the ditty fitted for it: it 
was that smooth song, which was made by Kit Marlow,' now 
at least fifty years ago ; and the milk-maid's mother sung an 
answer to it, which was made by Sir AV alter Raleigh,^ in his 
younger days. 

They were old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good ; I think 
much better than the strong lines that are now in fashion in this 
critical age. Look yonder! on my word, yonder they both be 

' See page 80. 2 See page 138. 



266 WALTON. [cHARLES II. 

a-milking again. I will give her the chub, and persuade them 
to sing those two songs to us. 

God speed you, good woman, I have been a-fishing, and am 
going to Bleak-hall, to my bed; and having caught more fish 
than will sup myself and my friend, I will bestow this upon 
you and your daughter, for I use to sell none. 

Milk-woman. Marry, God requite you, sir, and we'll eat it 
cheerfully ; and if you come this way a-fishing two months 
hence, a grace of God, I'll give you a syllabub of new verjuice 
in a new made haycock for it, and my Maudlin shall sing you 
one of her best ballads ; for she and I both love all anglers, 
they be such honest, civil, quiet men : in the mean time will 
you drink a draught of red cow's milk? You shall have it 
freely. 

Piscator. No, I thank you ; but I pray do us a courtesy, 
that shall stand you and your daughter in nothing, and yet we 
will think ourselves still something in your debt: it is but to 
sing us a song that was sung by your daughter when I last past 
over this meadow, about eight or nine days since. 

Milk-woman. What song was it, I pray? Was it Com,e 
shepherds, deck your herds? or, As at noon JDulcina rested? 
or, Phillida flouts m,e? or, Chevy-chace? or, Johnny Arm- 
strong? or, Troy-town? 

Piscator. No, it is none of those; it is a song that your 
daughter sung the first part, and you sung the answer to it. 

Milk-woman. Oh, I know it now, I learned the first part in 
my golden age, when I was about the age of my poor daughter, 
and the latter part, which indeed fits me best now, but two or 
three years ago, when the cares of the world began to take hold 
of me : but you shall, God willing, hear them both, and sung 
as well as we can ; for we both love anglers. Come, Maudlin, 
sing the first part to the gentleman with a merry heart, and I'll 
sing the second when you have done. 

Here follows the milk-maid's song, " Come live with me and be my love," 
after which the hunter speaks : 

Venator. Trust me, master, it is a choice song, and sweetly 
sung by honest Maudlin. I now see it was not without cause, 
that our good queen Elizabeth did so often wish herself a milk- 
maid all the month of May, because they are not troubled with 
fears and cares, but sing sw^eetly all the day, and sleep securely 
all the night; and without doubt, honest, innocent, pretty 
Maudlin does so. I'll bestow Sir Thomas Overbury's milk- 
maid's wish upon her, " That she may die in the spring, and, 



1660-1685.] WALTON. 267 

being dead, may have good store of flowers stuck round about 
her winding sheet." 

Then comes the milk- maid's mother's answer, "If all the world and 
love were young," which done, the mother adds : 

AVell, I have done my song ; but stay, honest anglers, for I 
will make Maudlin to sing you one short song more. Maud- 
lin, sing that song that you sung last night when young Coridon 
the shepherd played so purely on his oaten pipe to you and 
your cousin Betty. 

Maudlin. I will, mother. 

" Married a wife of late," &c. 

Piscator. Well sung, good woman ; I thank you. I'll give 
you another dish of fish one of these days, and then beg an- 
other song of you. Come, scholar, let Maudlin alone : do not 
you offer to spoil her voice. Look, yonder comes mine hostess 
to call us to supper. How now! is my brother Peter come ? 

Hostess. Yes, and a friend with him ; they are both glad to 
hear that you are in these parts, and long to see you, and long 
to be at supper, for they are very hungry. 

The following most beautiful exhortation to contentment, which comes 
from the mouth of Piscator, is a perfect gem. Who would not be wiser 
and better for reading it every day ? Walton's own hfe seems to have illus- 
trated, in an eminent degree, the character he here describes — " The meek, 
who shall inherit the earth." 

I knew a man that had health and riches, and several houses, 
all beautiful and ready furnished, and would often trouble him- 
self and family to be removing from one house to another ; and 
being asked by a friend why he removed so often from one 
house to another, replied, " It was to find content in some one 
of them." But his friend knowing his temper, told him, "If 
he would find content in any of his houses, he must leave him- 
self behind him ; for content will never dwell but in a meek 
and quiet soul." And this may appear, if we read and con- 
sider what our Saviour says in St. Matthew's gospel, for he 
there says, " Blessed be the jnerciful, for they shall obtain 
mercy. Blessed be the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 
Blessed be the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of 
heaven. And blessed be the meek, for they shall possess the 
earth." Not that the meek shall not also obtain mercy, and 
see God, and be comforted, and at last come to the kingdom of 
heaven, but, in the meantime, he, and he only, possesses the 
earth, as he goes toward that kingdom of heaven, by being 



268 WALLER. [jAMES II. 

humble and cheerful, and content with what his good God has 
allotted him. He has no turbulent, repining, vexatious thoughts 
that he deserves better ; nor is vexed when he sees others pos- 
sessed of more honor or more riches than his wise God has 
allotted for«his share; but he possesses what he has with a 
meek and contented quietness, such a quietness as makes his 
very dreams pleasing, both to God and himself. 



EDxMUND WALLER, 1605— 168L 

Edmund Waller, in my estimation,. hardly deserves a place among the 
best names in English Literature, either as a poet or as a man, and in giving 
him a small space here, I yield my own judgment to that of Dryden and 
Pope. He v^'as born in 1605, studied at Cambridge, and was admitted into 
Parliament as early as his eighteenth year. In political life he was a mere 
time-server, veering from the king to the Parliament, and from the Parlia- 
ment to the king, as each might happen for the time to possess the ascend- 
ancy. As a member of Parliament he at first took the popular side, but 
soon after he joined in a plot to let the king's forces into the city, for which 
he was tried and sentenced to one year's imprisonment, and to pay a fine of 
.£10,000, and it is said that he spent three times that sum in bribes. He 
acquired the means to do this from having married in 1630 a rich heiress of 
London, who died the same year. After his release from prison he went to 
France, where it is said he lived on the proceeds of his wife's jewels which 
he took with him. At the Restoration he returned, and wrote a congratu- 
latory address to Charles H., as he had before done to Cromwell ; and when 
the monarch frankly told him how inferior the verses in his own praise were 
to those addressed to his predecessor, the hollow-hearted, selfish sycophant 
replied, " Poets, sire, succeed better in fiction than in truth." 

Of his conduct when in Parliament, Bishop Burnet says, " He never laid 
the business of the House to heart, being a vain and empty, though a witty 
man." On the accession of James H., though eighty years of age, he was 
elected representative for a borough in Cornwall; but he did not live to wit- 
ness the "glorious revolution," having died the year before, October 21, 
1687. 

As a poet, Waller is certainly "smooth" and graceful, and comparatively 
destitute of that affectation which characterizes most of his cotemporaries. 
Mr. Hallam says of him, " If he rarely sinks he never rises very high, and 
we find much good sense and selection, much skill in the mechanism of 
language and metre, without ardor and without imagination. In his amorous 
poetry he has little passion or sensibility ; but he is never free and petulant, 
never tedious, and never absurd. His praise consists much in negations."^ 

' " Introduction to the Literature of Europe," vol. ii. p. 372, Harper's ed. 



1685-1688.] WALLER. 269 

I give here what I deem his best piece, his Eulogy on Cromwell. "Of 
these lines," says Dr. Johnson, "some are grand, some are graceful, and 
all are musical." 



A PANEGYRIC TO MY LORD PROTECTOR. 

While with a strong, and yet a gentle, hand, 
You bridle faction, and our hearts command; 
Protect us from ourselves, and from the foe, 
Make us unite, and make us conquer too: 

Let partial spirits still aloud complain: 
Think themselves injur'd that they cannot reign : 
And own no liberty, but where they may 
Without controul upon their fellows prey. 

Above the waves as Neptune shew'd his face 
To chide the winds, and save the Trojan race: 
So has your Highness, rais'd above the rest, 
Storms of ambition, tossing us, represt. 

Your drooping country, torn with civil hate, 
Restor'd by you, is made a glorious state ; 
The seat of empire, where the Irish come. 
And the unwilling Scots, to fetch their doom. 

The sea's our own : and now, all nations greet, 
With bending sails, each vessel of our fleet : 
Your power extends as far as winds can blow, 
Or swelling sails upon the globe may go. 

Heaven (that hath plac"d this island to give law, 
To balance Europe, and her states to awe) 
In this conjunction doth on Britain smile ; 
The greatest Leader, and the greatest Isle ! 

Whether this portion of the world were rent, 
By the rude ocean, from the continent; 
Or thus created ; it was sure design'd 
To be the sacred refuge of mankind. 

Hither th' oppressed shall henceforth resort, 
Justice to crave, and succour, at your Court ; 
And then yOur Highness, not for ours alone, 
But for the world's Protector shall be known. 
****** 

With such a Chief the meanest nation blest, 
Might hope to lift her head above the rest : 
What may be thought impossible to do 
By us, embraced by the Sea and You 1 
****** 
Things of the noblest kind our own soil breeds; 
Stout are our men, and warlike are our steeds : 
Rome, though her eagle through the world had flown, 
Could never make this island all her own. 



270 WALLER. [jAMES II. 



Your never-failing sword made war to cease: 
And now you heal us with the acts of peace : 
Our minds with bounty and with awe engage, 
Invite affection, and restrain our rage. 

Less pleasure take brave minds in battles won, 
Than in restoring such as are undone : 
Tigers have courage, and the rugged bear, 
But man alone can whom he conquers, spare. 

To pardon, willing; and to punish, loth; 

You strike with one hand, but you heal with both. 

Lifting up all that prostrate lie, you grieve 

You cannot make the dead again to live. 

****** 

Oft have we wonder'd, how you hid in peace 
A mind proportion'd to such things as these; 
How such a ruling spirit you could restrain, 
And practise first over yourself to reign. 

Your private life did a just pattern give, 
How fathers, husbands, pious sons, should live; 
Born to command, your Princely virtues slept, 
Like humble David's, while the flock he kept. 

But when your troubled country call'd you forth, 
Your flaming courage and your matchless worth. 
Dazzling the eyes of all that did pretend. 
To fierce contention gave a prosperous end. 

Still, as you rise, the state, exalted too, 

Finds no distemper while 'tis chang'd by you; 

Chang'd like the v/orld's great scene ! when, without noise. 

The rising sun night's vulgar lights destroys. 

Had you, some ages past, this race of glory 

Run, with amazement we should read your story : 

But living virtue, all achievements past, 

Meets envy still, to grapple with at last. 

****** 

Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse, 

And every conqueror creates a Muse : 

Here in low strains your milder deeds we sing ; 

But there, my Lord! we'll bays and olive bring 

To crown your head : while you in triumph ride 
O'er vanquish'd nations, and the sea beside : 
While all your Neighbour-Princes unto you. 
Like Joseph's sheaves, pay reverence and Idow. 

Of his shorter pieces, the following has been pronounced "one of the 
most graceful poems of an age from which a taste for the highest poetry was 
fast vanishing." 



1695-1688.] BUNYAN. 271 



Go, lovely rose ! 

Tell her that wastes her time and me.. 

That now she knows 

When I resemble her to thee, 

How sweet and fair she seems to be. 

Tell her that's young, 

And shuns to have her graces spied, 

That hadst thou sprung 

In deserts, where no men abide, 
Thou must have uncommended died. 

Small is the worth 

Of beauty from the light retired : 

Bid her come forth, 

Suffer herself to be desired. 
And not blush so to be admired. 

Then die ! that she 

The common fate of all things rare 

May read in thee, 

How small a part of time they share 
That are so wondrous sweet and fair. 



JOHN BUNYAN, 1628—1688. 

With what pleasure do we turn from the character of Waller, to thai 
never-to-be-forgotten, and ever-to-be-revered name — John Bunyan, the 
poor " tinker of Bedford." 

" Ingenious dreamer, in whose well told tale 
Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail; 
Whose humorous vein, strong sense, and simple style, 
May teach the gayest, make the gravest smile; 
Witty, and well employed, and, like thy Lord, 
Speaking in parables his slightest word; 
I name thee not, lest so despised a name 
Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame ; 
Yet even in transitory life's late day. 
That mingles all my brown with sober gray, 
Revere the man, whose pilgrim marks the road, 
And guides the progress of the soul to God." CowpEH, 

But if there was danger in Cowper's time of " moving a sneer" at the 
mention of his name, there is none now, for it is doubtful whether, within 
the last fifty years, more editions have been published of any one book in 
the English language, the Bible excepted, than of Pilgrim's Progress. 

John Bunyan was born in the village of Elston, near Bedford, in the year 
1628. His father was a brazier or tinker, and he was brought up to the 
same trade. Though his parents were extremely poor, they put their son 



272 BUNYAN. [jAMES II. 

to the best scliool they could afford, and thus he learned to read and write. 
He says of himself that he was early thrown among vile companions, and 
initiated into profaneness, lying, and all sorts of boyish vice and ungodli- 
ness. Thus plainly he speaks of himself in view of his early sins, but it is 
just to say that to drinking and to licentiousness in its grossest forms, he 
was never addicted. He married very early, at the age of nineteen. " My 
mercy was," he says, "to light upon a wife whose father was counted 
godly." Who can tell the happy influence that this connection exerted over 
him? And how vastly would the sum of human happiness be increased, if, 
in choosing a companion for life, moral and religious character were re- 
garded more, and worldly circumstances less. Soon after this, Bunyan left 
off his profanity, and began to think more seriously. "My neighbors were 
amazed," he says, "at this my great conversion from prodigious profane- 
ness to something Uke a moral life : they began to praise, to commend, and 
to speak well of me." Flattered by these commendations, and proud of 
his imagined godliness, he concluded that the Almighty "could not choose 
but be now pleased with him. Yea, to relate it in mine own way, I thought 
no man in England could please God better than I." 

He was awakened from this self-righteous delusion by accidentally over- 
hearing the discourse of three or four poor women, who were sitting at a 
door in the sun, in one of the streets of Bedford, " talking about the things 
of God." What especially struck him was, that they conversed about 
matters of religion " as if joy did make them speak," and "as if they had 
found a new world." He was most deeply impressed by this, and carried 
the words of these poor women with him wherever he went. His spiritual 
conflict was long, and attended with many and sore temptations; but God 
heard his prayer;' his views of truth became clear, and in 1653, when 
twenty-five years of age, he joined the Baptist church at Bedford. He 
occasionally addressed small meetings of the church, and at their urgent 
request, so full of power and unction did they deem his preaching, when 
their pastor died in 1655, he was desired by them to fill, for a time, his 
place. He did so, and also preached in other places, and attracted great 
attention. But " bonds and imprisonments awaited him." He had, for five 
or six years, without any interruption, freely preached the gospel ; but, in 
November 1660, he was taken up by a warrant from a justice, who re- 
solved, as he said, "to break the neck of such meetings." Such was one 
of the first fruits of the Restoration. The bill of indictment against him 
ran to this effect : " That John Bunyan, of the town of Bedford, labourer, 
hath devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to church^ to hear 
divine service, and is a common upholder of several unlawful meetings and 
conventicles," &c. 

The result was, of course, that he was convicted ; and accordingly he was 
sent to Bedford jail, where he was confined for twelve long years, lest, like 

^ " Lord, I am a fool, and not able to know the truth from error; Lord, 
leave me not to my own blindness. Lord, I lay my soul only at thy feet, let 
me not be deceived, I humbly beseech thee." 

^ Meaning, of course, the " established" church. 



1685-1688.] BUNYAN. 273 

the great apostle of the Gentiles, he should persuade and "turn away much 
people." But how impotent is the rage of man ! "He that sitteth in the 
heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision," In the inscru- 
table purposes of Providence, this was the very way designed for this 
humble individual to do the greatest amount of good. It was there, in the 
damps of his prison house, that he, ignorant of classic lore, but deeply read 
in the Word of God, composed a work full of the purest spirit of poetry; 
caught indeed from no earthly muse, but from the sacred volume of inspi- 
ration : — a work which is read with dehght by all, — by the man of the 
world, who has no sympathy with its religious spirit, and by the Christian, 
who has the key to it in his own heart ; a work which has been the delight 
of youth, and the solace of age ; a work which has given comfort to many a 
wounded spirit, which has raised many a heart to the throne of God. What 
an illustrious instance of the superiority of goodness over learning. Who 
now reads the learned wits of the reign of Charles the Second ? Who, 
comparatively, reads even Dryden, or Tillotson, or Barrow, or Boyle, or 
Sir William Temple ? Who has not read, who will not read the immortal 
epic of John Bunyan ? Who does not, who will not ever, with Cowper, 

" Revere the man whose pilgrim marks the road, 
And guides the progress of the soul to God ?" 

What an affecting account he gives of his feelings during his imprison- 
ment ! "I found myself a man encompassed with infirmities: the parting 
with my wife and poor children hath often been to me in this place as the 
pulling the flesh from the bones ; and that not only because I am somewhat 
too fond of these great mercies, but also because I should have after brought 
to my mind the many hardships, miseries, and wants that my poor family 
was likely to meet with, should I be taken from them, especially my poor 
bhnd child, who lay nearer my heart than all beside. Oh I the thoughts of 
the hardship I thought my poor blind one might undergo, would break my 
heart to pieces. Poor child ! thought I, what sorrow thou art like to have 
for thy portion in this world! Thou must be beaten, must beg, suffer 
hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand calamities, though I cannot now 
endure the wind should blow upon thee. But yet recalling myself, thought 
I, I must venture you all with God, though it goeth to the quick to leave 
you." What a heavenly spirit ! what true sublimity of character does such 
language display ! 

The only books that Bunyan had with him in prison, were The Bible 
and Fox's Book of Martyrs. What use he made of the former the wide 
world knoweth, in that immortal fruit of his imprisonment — the Pilgrim's 
Progress. Well is it that wicked men, persecutors and oppressors cannot 
chain the mind : 



the oppressor holds 



His body bound; but knows not what a range 

His spirit takes, unconscious of a chain ; 

And, that to bind him is a vain attempt, 

Whom God delights in, and in whom he dwells." Cowper. 



18 



274 BUNYAN. [jAMES II. 

He was not released from prison till 1672. But no sooner was he out 
than, like the early apostles after their imprisonment, he entered at once on 
his Great Master's work, preaching his word not only to his former congre- 
gation, but wherever he went. Every year he paid a visit to his friends in 
London, where his reputation was so great that thousands flocked to hear 
him, and if but a day's notice were given, the meeting-house would not 
hold half the people that attended. It is said that Dr. Owen was among 
his occasional auditors ; and an anecdote is on record, that, being asked by 
Charles II. how a learned man such as he was, could "sit and hear an 
illiterate tinker prate," he replied: "May it please your majesty, could I 
possess that tinker's abilities for preaching, I would most gladly rehnquish 
all my learning." He continued his labours until 1688, when, ha\'ing taken 
a violent cold in a rain-storm, while on a journey to preach, he died August 
12th, in the 61st year of his age. 

Bunyan was a voluminous writer, having written, it is said, as many books 
as he was years old. Of these, the Holy War would have immortalized 
him, had he written nothing else. The title of this is "The Holy War 
made by King Shaddai upon Diabolus, for the Regaining the Metropolis of 
the World, or the Losing and Retaking of Mansoul." Here the fall of 
man is typified by the capture of the flourishing city of Mansoul by Dia- 
bolus, the enemy of its rightful sovereign, Shaddai or Jehovah; whose 
son Immanuer recovers it after a tedious siege. Some of his other works 
are, " Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners," being an account of his 
own life : " The Doctrine of the Law and Grace unfolded:" " The Life 
and Death of Mr. Badman," in the form of a dialogue, giving an account of 
the different stages of a wicked man's life, and of his miserable death: 
"The Barren Fig Tree, or the Doom and Downfall of the fruitless Pro- 
fessor:" " One Thing is Needful:" "A Discourse touching Prayer," &c. 

But his great work, and that by which he will ever best be known, is 
"The Pilgrim's Progress," an allegorical view of the life of a Christian, 
his dilBculties, temptations, encouragements, and ultimate triumph. This 
work is so universally known as to render all comment unnecessary. No 
book has received such general commendation. As to the number of 
editions through which it has passed it is impossible to form a conjecture, 
Mr. Southey thinks it probable that "no other book in the English lan- 
guage' has obtained so constant and so wide a sale," and that "there is 
no European language into which it has not been translated." Dr. John- 
son, Cowper, Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, Southey, Montgomery, have 
united to extol this truly original work : indeed, pages might be occupied 
with the encomiums with which poets and critics have dehghted to honor 
this once obscure and despised religious writer. ^ 

^ The Bible, of course, excepted, and probably Watts' Psalms and Hymns. 

- The poet Southey has written his life ; but he was not qualified for it, 
having little sympathy with Bunyan as a Reformer. Read an excellent 
article in the 79th number of the North Annerican Review : also another in 
Macaulay's Miscellanies, i. 428. From the latter I cannot but extract the 
following : — " The style of Bunyan is delightful to every reader, and invalu- 



1685-1688.] BUNYAN. 275 

We will make but one extract from the Pilgrim's Progress, as it is in 
the hands of almost every one, and that will be the case of 



CHRISTIAN IN DOUBTING CASTLE. 

Now there was, not far from the place where they lay, a 
castle, called Doubting Castle, the owner whereof was Giant 
Despair,' and it was in his grounds they now were sleeping; 
wherefore he, getting up in the morning early, and walking up 
and down in his fields, caught Christian and Hopewell asleep 
in his grounds. Then, with a grim and surly voice, he bid 
them awake, and asked them whence they were, and what 
they did in his grounds? They told him they were pilgrims, 
and that they had lost their way. Then said the giant. You 
have this night trespassed on me, by trampling and lying on 
my ground, and therefore you must go along with me. So 
they were forced to go, because he was stronger than they. 
They also had but little to say, for they knew themselves in 
fault. The giant, therefore, drove them before him, and put 
them into his castle, in a very dark dungeon, nasty and stink- 
ing to the spirits of those two men. Here they lay from Wed- 
nesday morning till Saturday night, without one bit of bread, 
or drop of drink, or light, or any to ask how they did: they 
were therefore here in evil case, and were far from friends and 
acquaintance. Now, in this place Christian had double sor- 
row, because it was through his unadvised haste that they were 
brought into this distress.'' 

able as a study to every person who wishes to obtain a wide command over 
the English language. The vocabulary is the vocabulary of the common 
people. There is not an expression, if we except a few technical terms of 
theology, which would puzzle the rudest peasant. We have observed several 
pages which do not contain a single word of more than two syllables. Yet 
no writer has said more exactly what he meant to say. For magnificence, 
for pathos, for vehement exhortation, for subtle disquisition, for every pur- 
pose of the poet, the orator and the divine, this homely dialect, the dialect of 
plain working men, was perfectly sufficient. There is no book in our litera- 
ture on which we would so readily stake the fame of the unpolluted English 
language, no book which shows so well how rich that language is in its own 
proper wealth, and how little it has been improved by all that it has bor- 
rowed." And again : " We are not afraid to say, that, though there were 
many clever men in England during the latter half of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, there were only two minds which possessed the imaginative faculty in a 
very eminent degree. One of those minds produced the ' Paradise Lost,' 
the other the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' " 

^ <« Sooner or later. Doubting Castle will be the prison, and Giant Despair 
the keeper of all who turn aside from Christ, and his righteousness, to trust 
in anywise in themselves, and to their own righteousness." 

2 " What ! these highly favored Christians in Doubting Castle ? Is it possi- 



276 BUNYAN. [jAMES II. 

Now, Giant Despair had a wife, and her name was Diffi- 
dence: so when he Avas gone to bed, he told his wife what he 
had done, to wit, that he had taken a couple of prisoners and 
cast them into his dungeon, for trespassing on his grounds. 
Then he asked her also what he had best to do further to them. 
So she asked him what they were, whence they came, and 
whither they were bound, and he told her. Then she coun- 
selled him, that when he arose in the morning, he should beat 
them without mercy. So when he arose, he getteth him a 
grievous crab-tree cudgel, and goes down into the dungeon to 
them, and there first falls to rating them as if they were dogs, 
although they never gave him a Yvord of distaste : then he falls 
upon them, and beats them fearfully, in such sort that they 
were not able to help themselves, or turn them upon the floor. 
This done, he withdraws, and leaves them there to condole 
their misery, and to mourn under their distress: so all that day 
they spent their time in nothing but sighs and bitter lamenta- 
tions. The next night she talked with her husband about them 
further, and understanding that they were yet alive, did advise 
him to counsel them to make away with themselves. So when 
morning was come, he goes to them in a surly manner, as be- 
fore, and perceiving them to be very sore with the stripes that 
he had given them the day before, he told them, that since they 
were never like to come out of that place, their only way would 
be forthwith to make an end of themselves, either with knife, 
halter, or poison : For why, said he, should you choose life, 
seeing it is attended with so much bitterness ? But they de- 
sired him to let them go ; with which he looked ugly upon 
them, and rushing to them, had doubdess made an end of them 
himself, but that he fell into one of his fits (for he sometimes 
in sun-shiny weather fell into fits), and lost for a time the use 
of his hands : wherefore he withdrew, and left them, as before, 
to consider what to do. Then did the prisoners consult be- 
tween themselves whether it was best to take his counsel or 
no ; and thus they began to discourse : — ^ 

ble, after having travelled so far in the way of salvation, seen so many glorious 
things in the way, experienced so iriuch of the grace and love of their Lord, 
and having so often proved his faithfulness, yet after all this to get into Doubt- 
ing Castle ! Is not this strange ? No, it is common ! the strongest Christians 
are liable to err, and get out of the way, and then to be beset with very great 
and distressing doubts," 

^ "Poor Christian ! what ! tempted to destroy thyself! Lord, what is man ! 
But ' God is faithful, who will not suffer you to 'be tempted above that ye are 
able ; but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape, that we mav 
be able to bear it.' '•' ICor.x. 13. 



1685-1688.] EUNYAN. 277 

Chr. Brother, said Christian, what shall we do ? The life 
that we now live is miserable. For my part, I know not 
whether it is best to live thus, or die out of hand. "My soul 
chooseth strangling rather than life," and the grave is more 
easy for ' me than this dungeon ! Shall we be ruled by the 
giant ? 

Hope. Indeed our present condition is dreadful, and death 
would be far more welcome to me, than thus for ever to abide ; 
but let us consider, the Lord of the country to which we are 
going hath said, " Thou shalt do no murder :" no, not to any 
man's person ; much more then are we forbidden to take his 
counsel to kill ourselves. Besides, he that kills another can 
but commit murder on his own body ; but for one to kill him- 
self, is to kill body and soul at once. And, moreover, my 
brother, thou talkest of ease in the grave ; but hast thou for- 
gotten the hell, whither for certain the murderers go ? For no 
murderer hath eternal life, &c. And let us consider, again, 
that all laws are not in the hand of Giant Despair : others, so 
far as I can understand, have been taken by him as well as we, 
and yet have escaped out of his hands. Who knows but that 
God, who made the world, may cause that Giant Despair may 
die ; or that, at some time or other, he may forget to lock us 
in ; or that he may in a short time have another of his fits be- 
fore us, and may lose the use of his limbs ? and if ever that 
should come to pass again, for my part I am resolved to pluck 
up the heart of a man, and to try my utmost to get from under 
his hand." I was a fool that I did not try to do it before; but, 
however, my brother, let us be patient, and endure awhile : the 
time may come that he may give us a happy release ; but let 
us not be our own murderers. With these words Hopeful at 
present did moderate the mind of his brother; so they con- 
tinued together (in the dark) that day in their sad and doleful 
condition. 

Well, towards the evening, the giant goes down into the 
dungeon again, to see if his prisoners had taken his counsel ; 
but when he came there he found them alive ; and truly, alive 
was all ; for now, what for want of bread and water, and by 
eason of the wounds they received when he beat them, they 
-ould do little but breathe. But, I say, he found them alive ; 
It which he fell into a grievous rage, and told them, that seeing 

^ " Mark, how a fit of despair robs a Christian of his courage, reason, and 
_Taces. But one single thought of the love, power, and grace of a covenant 

/od in Christ, elevates the Christian's mind with hope." 



278 BUNYAX. [jAMES II. 

they had disobeyed his counsel, it should be worse with them 
than if they had never been born. 

At this they trembled greatly, and I think that Christian fell 
into a swoon; but coming a little to himself again, they re- 
newed their discourse about the giant's counsel, and whether 
yet they had best take it or no. Now, Christian again seemed 
to be for doing it ; but Hopeful made his second reply as fol- 
loweth : — 

Hope. My brother, said he, rememberest thou not how 
valiant thou hast been heretofore ? Apollyon could not crush 
thee, nor could all that thou didst hear, or see, or feel, in the 
Valley of the Shadow of Death : what hardships, terror, and 
amazement hast thou already gone through, and art thou now 
nothing but fear? Thou seest that I am in the dungeon with 
thee,*a far weaker man by nature than thou art; also this giant 
has wounded me as well as thee, and hath also cut off the 
bread and water from my mouth, and with thee I mourn with- 
out the light. But let us exercise a little more patience : re- 
member how thou playedst the man at Vanity Fair, and wast 
neither afraid of the chain nor the cage, nor yet of bloody 
death; Avherefore let us (at least to avoid the shame that be- 
comes not a Christian to be found in) bear up with patience as 
well as we can.' 

Now, night being come again, and the giant and his wife 
being a-bed, she asked concerning the prisoners, and if they 
had taken his counsel ; to which he replied, They are sturdy 
rogues ; they choose rather to bear all hardships than to make 
away with themselves. Then said she. Take them into the 
castle-yard to-morrow, and show them the bones and skulls of 
those thou hast already despatched, and make them believe, ere 
a week comes to an end, thou wilt also tear them in pieces, as 
thou hast done their fellows before them. 

So when the morning was come, the giant goes to them 
again, and takes them into the castle-yard, and shows them as 
his wife had bidden him. These, said he, were pilgrims, as 
you are, once ; and they trespassed in ray grounds, as you 

1 "Here is the blessing of a hopeful companion. Here is excellent coun- 
sel. Let vain professors say what they may against looking back to past 
experience. It is most certainly good and right so to do ; though not to en- 
courage present sloth and presumption, but to excite fresh confidence and 
hope in the Lord. We have David-s example, and Paul's word to encourage 
us in this: says David, « The Lord who delivered me out of the paw of the 
lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of 
this uncircuracised Philistine.'" 1 Sam. xii. 37. See also 2 Cor. i. 10. 



1685-1688.] BUNYAN. 279 

have done ; and, when I thought fit, I tore them in pieces, and 
so within ten days I will do you ; go, get ye down to your den 
again ; and with that he beat them all the way thither. 

They lay, therefore, all day on Saturday in a lamentable 
case, as before. Now, when night was come, and when Mrs. 
Diffidence and her husband the giant were got to bed, they be- 
gan to renew their discourse of their prisoners ; and, withal, 
the old giant wondered that he could neither by his blows nor 
counsel bring them to an end. And with that his wife replied, 
I fear, said she, that they live in hope that some will come to 
relieve them, or that they have picklocks about them, by the 
means of which they hope to escape. And sayest thou so, 
my dear? said the giant; I will therefore search them in the 
morning. 

Well, on Saturday, about midnight, they began to pray, and 
continued in prayer till almost break of day.^ 

Now, a little before it was day, good Christian, as one half 
amazed, brake out in this passionate speech : What a fool 
(quoth he) am I thus to lie in a stinking dungeon, when I may 
as well walk at liberty ? I have a key in my bosom, called 
Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting 
Castle. Then said Hopeful, That's good news, good brother ; 
pluck it out of thy bosom and try.^ 

Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom, and began to try 
at the dungeon-door, whose bolt (as he turned the key) gave 
back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and 
Hopeful both came out. Then he went to the outer door that 
leads into the castle-yard, and with his key opened that door 
also. After, he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened 
too ; but that lock went very hard, yet the key did open it. 
Then they thrust open the door to make their escape with 
speed, but that gate, as it opened, made such a cracking, that it 

1 «< What ! pray in custody of Giant Despair, in the midst of Doubting Cas- 
tle ; and when their folly brought them there, too ! Yes. Mind this, ye 
pilgrims. Ye are exhorted, ' I will that men pray everywhere, without 
doubting.' 1 Tim. ii. 8. We can be in no place but God can hear; nor in 
any circumstance, but God is able to deliver from. And be assured, when 
the spirit of prayer comes, deliverance is nigh at hand. So it was here." 

^ "Precious promise! The promises of God in Christ are the life of faithj 
and the quickeners of prayer. how oft do we neglect God's great and 
precious promises in Christ Jesus, while doubts and despair keep us prisoners. 
So it was with these pilgrims : they were kept under hard bondage of soul 
for four days. Hence we see what it is to grieve the Spirit of God , and should 
dread it; for he, only, is the Comforter; and if he withdraws his influences, 
who or what can comfort us ?" 



280 BARCLAY. [WILLIAM AND 3IARY 

waked Giant Despair, who, hastily rising to pursue his prison- 
ers, felt his limbs to fail; for his fits took him again, so that he 
could by no means go after them. Then they went on, and 
came to the king's highway, and so were safe, because they 
were out of his jurisdiction. 

Now, when they were gone over the stile, they began to 
contrive with themselves what they should do at that stile to 
prevent those that should come after from falling into the hands 
of Giant Despair. So they consented to erect there a pillar, 
and to engrave upon the stile thereof this sentence : — " Over 
this stile is the way to Doubting Castle, which is kept by 
Giant Despair, who despiseth the King of the Celestial Coun- 
try, and seeks to destroy his holy pilgrims." Many, therefore, 
that followed after, read what was written, and escaped the 
danger. 1 



ROBERT BARCLAY, 1648—1690. 

Robert Barclay, the distinguished writer of the Society of Friends, was 
born in Elgin-Shire, in the north of Scotland, ^ and south-east of Murray 
Frith, December 23, 1648, of a highly respectable family. After receiving 
the rudiments of his education at home, he was sent to Paris to pursue his 
studies under the direction of his uncle, who was rector of the Scots' Col- 
lege in that capital. It was a dangerous experiment, and might have proved 
permanently injurious, had not young Barclay been possessed of the strictest 
moral principles, and the highest sense of filial obligation: for he had en- 
deared himself so to his uncle, by his deportment and character, that he 
offered to make him his heir, and to settle a large estate immediately upon 
him, if he would remain in France. But his father, knowing that his son 
was strongly inclined to join the Papal church, directed him to return home. 
He did not hesitate between what seemed interest and duty, and at once 
abandoned all his prospects of wealth and aggrandizement, to comply with 
his father's wishes. Such filial obedience is never left without a witness. 
In Barclay's case the blessing that attended it was most signal. Had he 
remained in France, though his wealth might have surrounded him with a 
crowd of flatterers, in all probability he would never have been known after 
his death. But he returned, and gained a world-wide fame. He returned, 
and became the ablest expounder of a sect, that as a sect has taken the lead 

1 "Recording our own observations, and the experience we have had in 
God's dealing with our souls, are made of special and peculiar use to our 
fellow-Christians." 

2 Not in Edinburgh, as stated by William Penn. 



1689-1702.] BARCLAY. 281 

of all others in three great subjects, inseparably connected with practical^ 
Christianity, Intemperance, Slavery, and War,^ 

A short time before young Barclay left France, his father had been con- 
verted to the views and principles of a sect which had existed only ten 
years — the Quakers. On his return Robert, after giving to the subject a 
degree of thought and investigation almost beyond his years, followed the 
example of his father, though only nineteen. He applied himself diligently 
to the study of the original languages of the Bible, of the Fathers, and of 
ecclesiastical history; and seeing how much the Friends were misunder- 
stood and abused, he wrote several works in their defence, and in explana- 
tion of their principles. But the great work on which his fame rests, is 
entitled, " An Apology for the true Christian Divinity, as the same is held 
forth and practised by the People called in scorn, Quakers." The effect 
produced by this able work soon became visible, for it proved beyond dis- 
pute, that this proscribed sect professed a system of theology that was capa- 
ble of being defended by strong, if not unanswerable arguments. Some 
portions of this work became the subject of very animated controversy, not 
in England only, but on the continent. This occasioned Barclay to appear 
again in defence of his principles. He also wrote to vindicate the internal 
arrangements and government of the Friends. He wrote, besides, two treat- 
ises on peace, declaring his opinion that all war is indefensible, on account of 
its incompatibility with the principle of universal benevolence. One of 
these he addressed to the ambassadors of the several princes of Europe, 
then assembled at Nimeguen. 

" The latter years of Robert Barclay's life were spent in the quiet of his 
family, in which his mild and amiable virtues found their happiest sphere of 
exercise. He died October 3, 1690, in the forty-second year of his age — 
the prime of life — his death having been occasioned by a violent fever, which 
came on immediately after his return from a religious visit in some parts of 
Scotland. His moral character was free from every reproach, and his 
temper was so well regulated, that he was never seen in anger. In all the 
relations of life, and in his intercourse with the world, he was conspicuous 
for the exercise of those virtues which are the best test of right principles, 
and the most unequivocal proof of their practical influence." 

The following is a part of the Dedication of his great work, the '^ Apolo- 
gy," to Charles II. It has been justly praised for its high and fearless tone 

* And what other than practical is of any worth? " He shall reward every 
man according to his works:" Matt. xvi. 27. " Inasmuch as ye have done 
it unto one of the least ye have done it unto Me :" Matt. xxv. 40, " Ye 
see then how that by works a man isjustified, and not by faith only :" James 
ii. 24. " What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love 
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ?" Micah vi. 8, " If no faith be 
Jiving nor yet available to justification without works, then works are neces- 
sary to justification :" Barclay. 

= The three great scourges of the human race, which have done more than 
every thing else to degrade and brutalize man, and therefore are most diame- 
trically opposed to the principles and teachings of Him, who came to bring 
^' peace on earth and good will to man." 



282 BARCLAY. [WILLIAM AND MARY 

of Christian faithfulness and independent truth; the more to be admired, as 
it was written and published in times of great licentiousness and servility to 
the reigning monarch. 



DEDICATION TO CHARLES SECOND. 

As it is inconsistent with the truth I bear, so it is far from 
me to use this epistle as an engine to flatter thee, the usual de- 
sign of such works : and therefore I can neither dedicate it to 
thee, nor crave thy patronage, as if thereby I might have more 
confidence to present it to the world, or be more hopeful of its 
success. To God alone I owe what I have, and that more 
immediately in matters spiritual, and therefore to Him alone, 
and to the service of His truth, I dedicate whatever work He 
brings forth in me, to whom only the praise and honor apper- 
tain, whose truth needs not the patronage of worldly princes, 
His arm and power being that alone, by which it is propagated, 
established, and confirmed. * 

There is no king in the world, who can so experimentally 
testify of God's providence and goodness; neither is there any, 
who rules so many free people, so many true Christians ; 
which thing renders thy government more honorable, thyself 
more considerable, than the accession of many nations, filled 
with slavish and superstitious souls. 

Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity ; thou knowest 
what it is to be banished thy native country, to be overruled, 
as well as to rule and sit upon the throne ; and being oppressed, 
thou hast reason to know how hateful the oppressor is to both 
God and man:' if after all these warnings and advertisements, 
thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but forget 
Him, who remembered thee in thy distress, and give up thy- 
self to follow lust and vanity ; surely great will be thy condem- 
nation. 

Against which snare, as well as the temptation of those that 
may or do feed thee, and prompt thee to evil ; the most ex- 
cellent and prevalent remedy will be, to apply thyself to that 
light of Christ, which shineth in thy conscience, which neither 
can, nor will flatter thee, nor suff'er thee to be at ease in thy 

1 A similar sentiment was expressed by William Pinckney, in the Mary- 
land House of Delegates in 1789. " It will not do thus to talk like philoso- 
phers, and as slaveholders, act like unrelenting tyrants ; to be perpetually 
sermonizing it, with liberty for our text, and actual oppression for our com- 
mentary." So, also, Edward Rushton, in his letter to General Washington : 
"Man is never so truly odious as when he inflicts upon others that which he 
himself abominates." 



1689-1702.] BARCLAY. 283 

sins ; but doth and will deal plainly and faithfully with thee, 
as those that are followers thereof have also done. 

God Almighty, who hath so signally hitherto visited thee 
with His love, so touch and reach thy heart, ere the day of 
thy visitation be expired, that thou mayest effectually turn to 
Him, so as to improve thy place and station for His name. So 
wisheth, so prayeth. 

Thy faithful friend and subject, 

Robert Barclay. 



AGAINST TITLES OF HONOR. 

We affirm positively, that it is not lawful for Christians 
either to give or receive these titles of honor, as. Your Holi- 
ness, Your Majesty, Your Excellency, Your Eminency, &c. 

First, because these titles are no part of that obedience 
which is due to magistrates or superiors ; neither doth the 
giving them add to or diminish from that subjection we owe to 
them, which consists in obeying their just and lawful com- 
mands, not in titles and designations. 

Secondly, we find not that in the Scripture any such titles 
are used, either under the law or the gospel; but that, in speak- 
ing to kings, princes, or nobles, they used only a simple com- 
pellation, as, " O King !" and that without any further designa- 
tion, save, perhaps, the name of the person, as, " O King 
Agrippa," &c. 

Thirdly, it lays a necessity upon Christians most frequently 
to lie ; because the persons obtaining these titles, either by elec- 
tion or hereditarily, may frequently be found to have nothing 
really in them deserving them, or answering to them : as some, 
to whom it is said, " Your Excellency," having nothing of ex- 
cellency in them ; and who is called, " Your Grace," appear 
to be an enemy to grace; and he who is called " Your Honor," 
is known to be base and ignoble. I wonder what law of man, 
or what patent, ought to oblige me to make a lie, in calling 
good evil, and evil good. I wonder what law of man can 
secure me, in so doing, from the just judgment of God, that 
will make me count for every idle word. And to lie is some- 
thing more. Surely Christians should be ashamed that such 
laws, manifestly crossing the law of God, should be among 
them. ****** 

Fourthly, as to those titles of " Holiness," " Eminency," 
and " Excellency," used among the Papists to the pope and 
cardinals, &c. ; and "Grace," "Lordship," and "Worship," 



284 BARCLAY. [WILLIAM AND MARY 

used to the clergy among the Protestants, it is a most blasphe- 
mous usurpation. For if they use " Holiness" and " Grace" 
because these things ought to be in a pope or in a bishop, how 
come they to usurp that peculiarly to themselves ? Ought not 
holiness and grace to be in every Christian ? And so every 
Christian should say "Your Holiness," and "Your Grace" 
one to another. Next, how can they in reason claim any 
more titles than were practised and received by the apostles 
and primitive Christians, whose successors they pretend they 
are ; and as whose successors (and no otherwise) themselves, 
I judge, will confess any honor they seek is due to them? 
Now, if they neither sought, received, nor admitted such honor 
nor titles, how came these by them ? If they say they did, let 
them prove it if they can : we find no such thing in the Scrip- 
ture. The Christians speak to the apostles without any such 
denomination, neither saying, "If it please your Grace," "your 
Holiness," nor " your Worship ;" they are neither called My 
Lord Peter, nor My Lord Paul ; nor yet Master Peter, nor 
Master Paul ; nor Doctor Peter, nor Doctor Paul ; but singly 
Peter and Paul ; and that not only in the Scripture, but for 
some hundreds of years after : so that this appears to be a 
manifest fruit of the apostacy.' For if these titles arise either 
from the office or worth of the persons, it wdll not be denied 
but the apostles deserved them better than any now that call 
for them. But the case is plain ; the apostles had the holi- 
ness, the excellency, the grace ; and because they were holy, 
excellent, and gracious, they neither used nor admitted such 
titles ; but these having neither holiness, excellency, nor grace, 
will needs be so called to satisfy their ambitious and ostenta- 
tious mind, which is a manifest token of their hypocrisy. 

Fifthly, as to that title of " Majesty" usually ascribed to 
princes, we do not find it given to any such in the Holy Scrip- 
ture ; but that it is specially and peculiarly ascribed unto God. 
We find in the Scripture the proud king Nebuchadnezzar 
assuming this title to himself, who at that time received a suffi- 
cient reproof, by a sudden judgment which came upon him. 
Therefore in all the compellations used to princes in the Old 
Testament, it is not to be found, nor yet in the New. Paul 
was very civil to Agrippa, yet he gives him no such title. 
Neither was this title used among Christians in the primitive 
times. 

^ For some views, which appear to me truly sound and scriptural, upon the 
title of Doctor of Divinity, see Barnes' notes upon Matt, xxiii. 8. Are not 
the same arguments of equal force against the title o? Reverend? 



1689-1702.] BOYLE. 285 



SIR ROBERT BOYLE, 1626—1692. 

Robert Botle, the son of Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, was bom at 
Lismore, in the county of Cork, January 25, 1626. When eight years of 
age he entered Eton School, and having pursued his studies there with 
great success for one so young, he was sent with his brother Francis, who 
had lately married, to travel upon the continent. At Geneva he and his 
brother remained for some time, and pursued their studies, Robert resuming 
his mathematics, in which he had been initiated at Eton. 

An anecdote, which explains the cause of his first attention to mathematical 
subjects, ought not to be passed over in silence, as it not only indicates the 
early development of his reasoning powers, but exhibits, in a striking man- 
ner, a general and important fact in education. When at Eton School, and 
before he was ten years of age, while recovering from a severe illness, some 
romances were put into his hands to divert and amuse him. His good habits 
of study were thereby so weakened, that on his restoration to health he 
found it difficult to fix his attention to any one subject. To recover his 
former habits, he resorted to an expedient certainly remarkable for one so 
young. He appUed himself forcibly to "the extraction of the square and 
cube roots, and especially those more laborious operations of algebra which 
so entirely exact the whole mind, that the smallest distraction or heedless- 
ness constrains us to renew our trouble, and re-begin the operation." This 
had the desired effect. It gave also a permanent direction to his talents, and 
was the commencement of that series of philosophical investigations and 
discoveries, which have rendered his name immortal. 

He quitted Geneva in 1641, and spent the next winter in Florence. Dur- 
ing his stay in this city, the famous astronomer Galileo died at a village in 
the vicinity. He thence visited Rome, Leghorn, and Genoa, and in 1644 
he returned with his brother to England. He found that his father, who 
had removed from Ireland to Stalbridge, in Dorsetshire, had recently died, 
and that he himself had come into the possession of the manor at Stalbridge, 
with other property. From this time to the end of his life, he appears to 
have been engaged in study. He was one of the first members of the " In- 
visible College," as he calls it, which, after the Restoration, became the 
Royal Society. In 1654 he took up his residence at Oxford, on account of 
the favorableness of the place to retirement, study, and philosophical inter- 
course. During his residence here he made great improvements in the air- 
pump, though he did not invent it, as some have stated. 

But Boyle did not devote all his time to Natural Philosophy : he gave a 
portion of it to the study of the original languages of the Scriptures, and of 
the Scriptures themselves. He also took an interest in every plan for the 
circulation of the Word of Truth, and as a member of the East India Com- 
pany, in 1676, pressed upon that body the duty of promoting Christianity in 
the East, He continued up to the close of his life to devote himself to the 
study of philosophy, and like Newton he will ever be known as a 



286 BOYLE. [WILLIAM AND MARY 

" Sagacious reader of the works of God, 
And in his Word sagacious." 

He died on the 30th of December (Old Style) 1691. 

The writings of Boyle are very voluminous, the greater part being on 
subjects of mechanical philosophy ; though he wrote not a few on moral 
subjects.' Of the latter are "Considerations on the Style of the Holy 
Scriptures ;" " Occasional Reflections on several Subjects ;" " Considera- 
tions about the Reconcileableness of Reason and Religion ;" " The Christian 
Virtuoso," showing that "by being addicted to experimental philosophy, a 
man is rather assisted than indisposed to be a good Christian," &c. As a 
man, it is said of him by a biographer, that "his benevolence, both in action 
and sentiment, distinguished him from others as much as his acquirements 
and experiments : and that, in an age when toleration was unknown." He 
has been styled the author of the " New or Experimental Philosophy," but it 
should always be recollected that Bacon pointed out the way. " The ex- 
cellent Mr. Boyle," says Mr. Hughes,^ " was the person who seems to have 
been designed by nature to succeed to the labors and inquiries of that extra- 
ordinary genius, Lord Bacon. By innumerable experiments he in a great 
measure filled up those plans and outlines of science which his predecessor 
had sketched out. His life was spent in the pursuit of nature, through a 
great variety of forms and changes, and in the most rational as well as 
devout adoration of its divine Author." Bishop Burnet sums up a brilliant 
eulogium of his character in the following strain: — "I will not amuse you 
with a list of his astonishing knowledge, or of his great performances in this 
way. They are highly valued all the world over, and his name is every- 
where mentioned with particular characters of respect. Few men, if any, 
have been known to have made so great a compass, and to have been so 
exact in all parts of it, as Boyle." 



THE STUDY OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY FAVORABLE TO RELIGION. 

The first advantage that our experimental philosopher, as 
such, hath towards being a Christian, is, that his course of 
studies conduceth much to settle in his mind a firm belief of the 
existence, and divers of the chief attributes, of God ; which be- 
lief is, in the order of things, the first principle of that natural 
religion which itself is pre-required to revealed religion in gene- 
ral, and consequently to that in particular which is embraced 
by Christians. 

That the consideration of the vastness, beauty, and regular 
motions of the heavenly bodies, the excellent structure of ani- 
mals and plants, besides a multitude of other phenomena of 
nature, and the subserviency of most of these to man, may 

1 His complete works were published in 1744 by Dr. Birch, in 5 vols, folio. 

2 Spectator, No. 554. 



1689-1702.] BOYLE. 287 

justly induce him, as a rational creature, to conclude that this 
vast, beautiful, orderly, and (in a word) many ways admirable 
system of things, that we call the world, was framed by an 
author supremely powerful, wise, and good, can scarce be de- 
nied by an intelligent and unprejudiced considerer. And this 
is strongly confirmed by experience, which witnesseth, that in 
almost all ages and countries the generality of philosophers and 
contemplative men were persuaded of the existence of a Deity, 
by the consideration of the phenomena of the universe, whose 
fabric and conduct, they rationally concluded, could not be de- 
servedly ascribed either to blind chance, or to any other cause 
than a divine Being. "^ * 

The works of God are so worthy of their author, that, besides 
the impresses of his wisdom and goodness that are left, as it 
were, upon their surfaces, there are a great many more curious 
and excellent tokens and effects of divine artifice in the hidden 
and innermost recesses of them ; and these are not to be dis- 
covered by the perfunctory looks of oscitant and unskilful be- 
holders ; but require, as well as deserve, the most attentive and 
prying inspection of inquisitive and well-instructed considerers. 
And sometimes in one creature there may be I know not how 
many admirable things, that escape a vulgar eye, and yet may 
be clearly discerned by that of a true naturalist, who brings 
with him, besides a more than common curiosity and attention, 
a competent knowledge of anatomy, optics, cosmography, me- 
chanics, and chemistry. But treating elsewhere purposely of 
this subject, it may here suffice to say, that God has couched 
so many things in his visible works, that the clearer light a man 
has, the more he may discover of their unobvious exquisiteness, 
and the more clearly and distinctly he may discern those quali- 
ties that lie more obvious. And the more wonderful things he 
discovers in the works of nature, the more auxiliary proofs he 
meets with to establish and enforce the argument, drawn from 
the universe and its parts, to evince that there is a God : which 
is a proposition of that vast weight and importance, that it ought 
to endear everything to us that is able to confirm it, and afford 
us new motives to acknowledge and adore the divine Author of 
things. * * 

To be told that an eye is the organ of sight, and that this is 
performed by that faculty of the mind which, from its function, 
is called visive, will give a man but a sorry account of the in- 
struments and manner of vision itself, or of the knowledge of 
that Opificer who, as the Scripture speaks, "formed the eye." 
And he that can take up with this easy theory of vision, will 



288 BOYLE. [WILLIAM AND MARY 

iiot think it necessary to take the pains to dissect the eyes of 
animals, nor study the books of mathematicians, to understand 
vision ; and accordingly will have but mean thoughts of the 
contrivance of the organ, and the skill of the artificer, in com- 
parison of the ideas that will be suggested of both of them to 
him that, being profoundly skilled in anatomy and optics, by 
their help takes asunder the several coats, humors, and muscles, 
of which that exquisite dioptrical instrument consists ; and 
having separately considered the figure, size, consistence, tex- 
ture, diaphaneity or opacity, situation, and connection of each 
of them, and their coaptation in the whole eye, shall discover, 
by the help of the laws of optics, how admirably this little 
organ is fitted to receive the incident beams of light, and dis- 
pose them in the best manner possible for completing the lively 

representation of the almost infinitely various objects of sight. 

=tf * * ^ * 

It is not by a slight survey, but by a diligent and skilful 
scrutiny of the works of God, that a man must be, by a rational 
and atfective conviction, engaged to acknowledge with the 
prophet, that the Author of nature is "wonderful in counsel, 
and excellent in working.*' 

DISCRIMINATION NECESSARY IN READING THE SCRIPTURES. 

AVe should carefully distinguish betwixt what the Scripture 
itself says, and what is only said in the Scripture. For we 
must not look upon the Bible as an oration of God to men, or 
as a body of laws, like our English statute-book, wherein it is 
the legislator that all the way speaks to the people ; but as a 
collection of composures of very dilferingr sorts, and written at 
very distant times ; and of such composures, that though the 
holy men of God (as St. Peter calls them) were acted by the 
Holy Spirit, who both excited and assisted them in penning 
the Scripture, yet there are many others, besides the Author 
and the penmen, introduced speaking there. For besides the 
books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, the four 
Evangelists, the Acts of the Apostles, and other parts of Scrip- 
ture that are evidently historical, and wont to be so called, there 
are, in the other books, many passages that deserve the same 
name, and many others wherein, though they be not mere nar- 
ratives of things done, many sayings and expressions are re- 
corded that either belong not to the Author of the Scripture, or 
must be looked upon as such wherein his secretaries personate 
others. So that, in a considerable part of the Scripture, not 



1689-1702.] BAXTER. 289 

only prophets, and kings, and priests being introduced speak- 
ing, but soldiers, shepherds, and women, and such other sorts 
of persons, from whom witty or eloquent things are not (espe- 
cially when they speak ex tempore) to be expected, it would be 
very injurious to impute to the Scripture any want of eloquence, 
that may be noted in the expressions of others than its Author. 
For though, not only in romances, but in many of those that 
pass for true histories, the supposed speakers may be observed 
to talk as well as the historian, yet that is but either because 
the men so introduced were ambassadors, orators, generals, or 
other eminent men for parts as well as employments ; or be- 
cause the historian does, as it often happens, give himself the 
liberty to make speeches for them, and does not set down in- 
deed what they said, but what he thought fit that such persons 
on such occasions should have said. Whereas the penmen of 
the Scripture, as one of them truly professes, having not followed 
cunningly devised fables in what they have written, have faith- 
fully set down the sayings, as well as actions, they record, 
without making them rather congruous to the conditions of the 
speakers than to the laws of truth. 



RICHARD BAXTER, 1615—1691. 

Few writers in the English language have obtained a wider fame than 
the celebrated non-conformisti divine, Richard Baxter. He was born at 
Rowdon, a small village in Shropshire, on the 12th of November, 1615. 
Being seriously impressed at an early age, it was his great desire to enter 
one of the universities, and study for the ministry. But want of means 
prevented the former, though he was enabled to reach the ultimate object of 
his wishes, by studying with a clergyman, Mr. Francis Garbett, who con- 
ducted him through a course of theology, and gave him much valuable 
assistance in his general reading. In 1638 he received ordination in the 
Church of England, having at that time no scruples on the score of subscrip- 
tion. In 1640 he was invited to preach to a congregation at Kidderminster, 
which invitation he accepted, and there labored many years with signal 
success. When the civil war broke out, he sided with the Parliament, and 
of course after the Restoration he had his share of the sufferings that at- 

'■ In the year 1662, two years after the Restoration of Charles II., a law was 
passed, called the Act of Uniformity, which enjoined upon every beneficed 
person, not only to use the Prayer-book, but to declare his assent and con- 
sent to every part of it, with many other very severe restrictions. It had the 
effect of banishing at once two thousand divines from the pale of the English 
church, who are called " Non-conformists j" of this number was Baxter. 
19 



290 BAXTER. [WILLIAM AND MARY 

tended all the non-conformist divines. On the accession of James II. 1685, 
he was arrested by a warrant from that most infamous of men, lord-chief 
justice Jeffries, for some passages in his " Commentary on the New Tes- 
tament," supposed hostile to Episcopacy, and was tried for sedition. The 
brutal insolence and tyranny of Jeffries on this trial, have signalized it as 
one of the most disgraceful proceedings on legal record. He acted the part 
of prosecutor as well as judge, insulting his counsel in the coarsest manner, 
refusing to hear his witnesses, and saying he was "sorry that the Act 
of Indemnity disabled him from hanging him." He was fined five hundred 
marks, and sentenced to prison till it was paid. He was confined in prison 
nearly eighteen months, when he was pardoned and the fine remitted. 
The solitude of his prison was enlivened on this, as on former occasions, by 
the affectionate attentions of his wife ; for it was his good fortune to marry 
one who cheerfully submitted to, and shared all his sufferings on the score 
of conscience. He lived to see that favorable change in reference to re- 
ligious toleration, which commenced at the Revolution of 1688, and died on 
the 8th of December, 1691. 

Baxter was a most voluminous writer, above one hundred and forty-five 
treatises of his being enumerated. Two of them, the " Saint's Ever- 
lasting Rest," and the " Call to the Unconverted," have been extremely 
popular, and met with a circulation which few other books have attained. 
The learned and unlearned have alike united to extol them, for they are 
admirably adapted to persons of every class and rank in life. The reason is, 
they are addressed to the heart and to the conscience, which are common to 
all ; that they appertain to that purity of heart and life which are indis- 
pensable to the happiness of all ; and that they treat of those eternal things 
in which the king and the peasant, the rich and the poor have an equal 
interest. 1 

Baxter left behind him a " Narrative of the most Memorable Passages of 
his Life and Times," which was published in a foho volume after his death. 
It is here we find that review of his religious opinions written in the 
latter part of his life, which Coleridge'^ speaks of as one of the most remark- 
able pieces of writing that have come down to us. It was a favorite book 
of Dr. Johnson, The following are some extracts from it: 



EXPERIENCE OF HUMAN CHARACTER. 

I now see more good and more evil in all men than hereto- 
fore I did. I see that good men are not so good as I once 
thought they were, but have more imperfections; and that 
nearer approach and fuller trial doth make the best appear 
more weak and faulty than their admirers at a distance think. 
And I fiind that few are so bad as either malicious enemies or 

1 Dr. Isaac Barrow has said, that " his practical writings were never 
mended, and his controversial ones seldom refuted." 

2 Biographia Literaria. 



1689-1702.] BAXTER. 291 

censorious separating professors do imagine. In some, indeed, 
I find that human nature is corrupted into a greater likeness to 
devils than I once thought any on earth had been. But even 
in the wicked, usually there is more for grace to make advan- 
tage of, and more to testify for God and holiness, than I once 
believed there had been. 

I less admire gifts of utterance, and bare profession of reli- 
gion, than I once did; and have much more charity for many 
who, by the want of gifts, do make an obscurer profession 
than they. I once thought that almost all that could pray 
movingly and fluently, and talk well of religion, had been 
saints. But experience hath opened to me what odious crimes 
may consist with high profession ; and I have met with divers 
obscure persons, not noted for any extraordinary profession, 
or forwardness in religion, but only to live a quiet blameless 
life, whom I have after found to have long lived, as far as I 
could discern, a truly godly and sanctified life; only, their 
prayers and duties were by accident kept secret from other 
men's observation. Yet he that upon this pretence would con- 
found the godly and the ungodly, may as well go about to lay 
heaven and hell together. 

DESIRE OF APPROBATION. 

I am much less regardful of the approbation of man, and set 
much lighter by contempt or applause, than I did long ago. I 
am oft suspicious that this is not only from the increase of self- 
denial and humility, but partly from my being glutted and sur- 
feited with human applause : and all worldly things appear 
most vain and unsatisfactory, when we have tried them most. 
But though I feel that this hath some hand in the effect, yet, as 
far as I can perceive, the knowledge of man's nothingness, and 
God's transcendent greatness, with whom it is that I have most 
to do, and the sense of the brevity of human things, and the 
nearness of eternity, are the principal causes of this effect; 
which some have imputed to self-conceitedness and morosity. 

CHARACTER OF SIR MATTHEW HALE. 

He was a man of no quick utterance, but spake with great 
reason. He was most precisely just; insomuch that, I be- 
lieve, he would have lost all he had in the world rather than do 
an unjust act. Patient in hearing the most tedious speech 
which any man had to make for himself. The pillar of jus- 



292 BAXTER. [WILLIAM AND MARY 

tice, the refuge of the subject who feared oppression, and one 
of the greatest honors of his majesty's government; for, with 
some other upright judges, he upheld the honor of the English 
nation, that it fell not into the reproach of arbitrariness, cruelty, 
and utter confusion. Every man that had a just cause, was 
almost past fear if he could but bring it to the court or assize 
where he was judge; for the other judges seldom contradicted 
him. 

He was the great instrument for rebuilding London ; for 
when an act was made for deciding all controversies that hin- 
dered it, he was the constant judge, who for nothing followed 
the work, and, by his prudence and justice, removed a multi- 
tude of great impediments. 

His great advantage for innocency was, that he was no lover 
of riches or of grandeur. His garb was too plain ; he stu- 
diously avoided all unnecessary familiarity with great persons, 
and all that manner of living which signifieth wealth and great- 
ness. He kept no greater a family than myself. I lived in a 
small house, which, for a pleasant back opening, he had a 
mind to ; but caused a stranger, that he might not be suspected 
to be the man, to know of me whether I were willing to part 
with it, before he would meddle with it. In that house he 
lived contentedly, without any pomp, and without costly or 
troublesome retinue or visitors; but not without charity to the 
poor. He continued the study of physics and mathematics 
still, as his great delight. He hath himself written four vol- 
umes in folio, three of which I have read, against atheism, 
Sadduceeism, and infidelity, to prove first the Deity, and then 
the immortahty of man's soul, and then the truth of Christi- 
anity and the Holy Scripture, answering the infidel's objections 
against Scripture. It is strong and masculine, only too tedious 
for impatient readers. He said he wrote it only at vacant 
hours in his circuits, to regulate his meditations, finding, that 
while he wrote down what he thought on, his thoughts were 
the easier kept close to work, and kept in a method. But I 
could not persuade him to publish them. 

The conference which I had frequently with him, mostly 
about the immortality of the soul, and other philosophical and 
foundation points, was so edifying, that his very questions and 
objections did help me to more light than other men's solu- 
tions. Those who take none for religious who frequent not 
private meetings, &c., took him for an excellently righteous 
moral man; but I, who heard and read his serious expressions 
of the concernments of eternity, and saw his love to all good 



1689-1702.] BAXTER. 293 

men, and the blamelessness of his life, thought better of his 
piety than my own. When the people crowded in and out of 
my house to hear, he openly showed me so great respect be- 
fore them at the door, and never spake a word against it, as 
was no small encouragement to the common people to go on ; 
though the other sort muttered, that a judge should seem so 
far to countenance that which they took to be against the law. 
He was a great lamenter of the extremities of the times, and of 
the violence and foolishness of the predominant clergy, and a 
great desirer of such abatements as might restore us all to ser- 
viceableness and unity. He had got but a very small estate, 
though he had long the greatest practice, because he would 
take but little money, and undertake no more business than he 
could well despatch. He often offered to the lord chancellor 
to resign his place, when he was blamed for doing that which 
he supposed was justice. 

OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH IN CHARLES SECOND's REIGN. 

I cannot forget, that in my youth, in those late times, when 
we lost the labors of some of our conformable godly teachers, 
for not reading publicly the book of sports and dancing on the 
Lord's Day, one of my father's own tenants was the town 
piper, hired by the year (for many years together), and the 
place of the dancing assembly was not an hundred yards from 
our door. We could not, on the Lord's Day, either read a 
chapter, or pray, or sing a psalm, or catechise, or instruct a 
servant, but with the noise of the pipe and tabor, and the shout- 
ings in the street, continually in our ears. Even among a 
tractable people, we were the common scorn of all the rabble 
in the streets, and called puritans, precisians, and hypocrites, 
because we rather chose to read the Scriptures than to do as 
they did; though there was no savour of non-conformity in our 
family. And when the people by the book were allowed to 
play and dance out of public service time, they could so hardly 
break off their sports, that many a time the reader was fain to 
stay till the piper and players would give over. Sometimes 
the morris-dancers would come into the church in all their 
linen, and scarfs, and antic-dresses, with morris-bells jingling 
at their legs; and as soon as common prayer was read, did 
haste out presently to their play again. 



294 TILLOTSON. [WILLIAM AND MARY 



THEOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIES. 

My mind beinj^ these many years immersed in studies of 
this nature, and having also long wearied myself in searching 
what fathers and schoolmen have said of such things before 
us, and my genius abhorring confusion and equivocals, I came, 
by many years' longer study, to perceive that most of the doc- 
trinal controversies among Protestants are far more about 
equivocal words than matter ; and it wounded my soul to per- 
ceive what work, both tyrannical and unskilful, disputing cler- 
gymen had made these thirteen hundred years in the world! 
Experience, since the year 1643, till this year, 1675, hath 
loudly called me to repent of my own prejudices, sidings, and 
censurings of causes and persons not understood, and of all the 
miscarriages of my ministry and life which have been thereby 
caused ; and to make it my chief work to call men that are 
within my hearing to more peaceable thoughts, affections, and 
practices. And my endeavors have not been in vain, in that 
the ministers of the county where I lived were very many of 
such a peaceable temper, and a great number more through the 
land, by God's grace (rather than any endeavors of mine), are 
so minded. But the sons of the cowl were exasperated the 
more against me, and accounted him to be against every man 
that called all men to love and peace, and was for no man as in 
a contrary way. 



JOHN TILLOTSON, 1630—1694. 

John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury, was born in Sowerby, in 
Yorkshire, in 1630. His father was a strict Puritan, and carefully instilled 
his own principles into the mind of his son, and in 1647 sent him to Cam- 
bridge to be under the tuition of David Clarkson, an eminent Presbyterian 
divine. After leaving college he became tutor in the family of Edmund 
Prideux, the attorney-general of Cromwell. In 1661, one year after the 
accession of Charles II., he complied with the act of uniformity, and con- 
sequently soon received a curacy in the Estabhshed Church ; after which he 
rose successively, through the many gradations, till in 1690 he was elevated 
to the see of Canterbury. He lived to enjoy his new honors but four years, 
dying in 1694. 

The sermons of Tillotson are his principal compositions, and so very 
popular was he, in his day, as a preacher, that a bookseller gave to his 
widow two thousand five hundred guineas for the copyright. They were 



1689-1702.] TiLLOTSON. 295 

proposed to divines as " models of correct and elegant composition," but they 
will not quite bear such eulogy. Perspicuity, smoothness, and verbal purity 
belong to them, but they do not possess much richness or vigor of thought. 
Still, however, his writings may be read with great pleasure as well as 
profit.* 

FALSE AND TRUE PLEASURE. 

Nothing is more certain in reason and experience, than that 
every inordinate appetite and affection is a punishment to itself; 
and is perpetually crossing its own pleasure, and defeating its 
own satisfaction, by overshooting the mark it aims at. For 
instance, intemperance in eating and drinking, instead of de- 
lighting and satisfying nature, doth but load and clog it ; and 
instead of quenching a natural thirst, which it is extremely 
pleasant to do, creates an unnatural one, which is troublesome 
and endless. The pleasure of revenge, as soon as it is exe- 
cuted, turns into grief and pity, guilt and remorse, and a thou- 
sand melancholy wishes that we had restrained ourselves from 
so unreasonable an act. And the same is as evident in other 
sensual excesses, not so fit to be described. We may trust 
Epicurus for this, that there can be no true pleasure without 
temperance in the use of pleasure. And God and reason hath 
set us no other bounds concerning the use of sensual pleasures, 
but that we take care not to be injurious to ourselves, or others, 
in the kind or degree of them. And it is very visible, that all 
sensual excess is naturally attended with a double inconveni- 
ence : as it goes beyond the limits of nature, it begets bodily 
pains and diseases : as it transgresseth the rules of reason and 
religion, it breeds guilt and remorse in the mind. And these 
are, beyond comparison, the two greatest evils in this world ; a 
diseased body, and a discontented mind ; and in this I am sure 
I speak to the inward feeling and experience of men ; and say- 
nothing but Avhat every vicious man finds, and hath a more 
lively sense of, than is to be expressed by words. 

^ " The sermons of Tillotson were, for half a century, more read than any 
in our language: they are now bought almost as waste paper, and hardly 
read at all." — Hallam. 

" Simplicity is the great beauty of Tillotson's manner. His style is always 
pure, indeed, and perspicuous, but careless and remiss; too often feeble and 
languid ; with little beauty in the construction of his sentences, which are fre- 
quently suffered to drag unharmoniously ; seldom any attempt towards strength 
or sublimity. But notwitiistanding these defects, such a constant vein of 
piety and good sense runs through his works, such an earnest and serious 
manner, and so much useful instruction conveyed in a style so pure, natural, 
and unaffected, as will justly commend him to liigh regard." — JS/a/r's Lectures 
on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres^ Lecture XLK. 



296 TILLOTSON. [WILLIAM AND MARY 

When all is done, there is no pleasure comparable to that of 
innocency, and freedom from the stings of a guilty conscience ; 
this is a pure and spiritual pleasure, much above any sensual 
delight. And yet among all tlie delights of sense, that of health 
(which is the natural consequent of a sober, and chaste, and 
regular life) is a sensual pleasure far beyond that of any vice. 
For it is the life of life, and that which gives a grateful relish 
to all our other enjoyments. It is not indeed so violent and 
transporting a pleasure, but it is pure, and even, and lasting, 
and hath no guilt or regret, no sorrow and trouble in it, or after 
it: which is a worm that infallibly breeds in all vicious and 
unlawful pleasures, and makes them to be bitterness in the end. 

EVIDENCE OF A CREATOR IN THE STRUCTURE OF THE WORLD. 

How often might a man, after he had jumbled a set of letters 
in a bag, (ling them out upon the ground before they would fall 
into an exact poem, yea, or so much as make a good discourse 
in prose ! And may not a little book be as easily made by 
chance, as this great volume of the world ? How long might a 
man be in sprinkling colors upon a canvass with a careless 
hand, before they could happen to make the exact picture of a 
man? And is a man easier made by chance than his picture ? 
How long might twenty thousand blind men, which should be 
sent out from the several remote parts of England, wander up 
and down before they would all meet upon Salisbury Plains, 
and fall into rank and file in the exact order of an army ? And 
yet this is much more easy to be imagined, than how the in- 
numerable blind parts of matter should rendezvous themselves 
into a world. 

EDUCATION. 

Such ways of education as are prudently fitted to the particu- 
lar disposition of children, are like wind and tide together, which 
will make the work go on amain : but those ways which are 
applied cross to nature are like wind against tide, which will 
make a stir and conflict, but a very slow progress. 

The principles of religion and virtue must be instilled and 
dropped into them by such degrees, and in such a measure, ^as 
they are capable of receiving them : for children are narrow- 
mouthed vessels, and a great deal cannot be poured into them 
at once. 

Young years are tender, and easily wrought upon, apt to be 



1689-1702.] TEMPLE. 297 

moulded into any fashion : they are like moist and soft clay, 
which is pliable to any form ; but soon grows hard, and then 
nothing is to be made of it. 

Great severities do often work an effect quite contrary to 
that which was intended ; and many times those who were 
bred up in a very severe school hate learning ever after for the 
sake of the cruelty that was used to force it upon them. So 
likewise an endeavor to bring children to piety and goodness 
by unreasonable strictness and rigor, does often beget in them 
a lasting disgust and prejudice against religion, and teacheth 
them to hate virtue, at the same time that they teach them to 
know it. 



SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, 1628—1698. - 

William Temple, otherwise Sir William Temple, an eminent states- 
man and writer of his day, was born in London, 1628, and at the age of 
seventeen entered Emanuel College, Cambridge. After spending about 
two years at the University, he spent six years in travelling upon the con- 
tinent, and returning in 1654, he married and lived in privacy under the 
Protectorate, declining all office: but soon after the Restoration, Charles 
II. bestowed a baronetcy upon him, and appointed him English resident at 
the court of Brussels. He paid a visit to the Dutch governor, De Witt, at 
the Hague, and with great skill brought about, in 1668, the celebrated 
" triple alliance" between England, Holland, and Sweden, which for a time 
checked the ambitious career of Louis XIV. Here, too, he formed an 
intimacy with the young Prince of Orange, afterwards William III. of 
England. 

His subsequent public employments were numerous; but when he dis- 
covered that Charles determined to govern without his Parliament, he quit- 
ted the court in disgust, and retired to his house at Sheen, near Richmond, 
in Surrey, whence he sent by his son a message to his majesty, stating 
that "he would pass the rest of his life as good a subject as any in his 
kingdoms, but would never more meddle with public affairs." From this 
period, he lived so retired a life, that the transactions which brought about 
the Revolution of 1688, were unknow^n to him. After the abdication of 
James, the Prince of Orange pressed him to become secretary of state, 
but could not prevail upon him to accept the post. He died in 1698, at the 
age of sixty-nine. 

The works of Sir William Temple consist, chiefly, of short miscellaneous 
pieces. His longest productions are, " Observations upon the United 
Provinces of the Netherlands," composed during his first retirement at 
Sheen; and an "Essay on the Original and Nature of Government." 
Besides several political tracts of temporary interest, he wrote "Essays" 



298 TEMPLE. [WILLIAM AND MARY 

on " Ancient and Modern Learning ;" the " Gardens of Epicurus ;" " He- 
roic Virtue;" "Poetry;" and "Health and Long Life." 

His " Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning," gave rise to one of 
the most celebrated literary controversies v^'hich have occurred in England. 
In it he maintained the position, that the ancients Vvcre far superior to the 
moderns, not in genius only, but in learning and science. After citing 
many works of the ancients to sustain his position, he adduced the " Epistles 
of Phalaris,"' which he declared genuine, and ventured to pronounce them 
as one of the greatest works of antiquity. This led to a publication of a 
new edition of them at Oxford, under the name of Charles Boyle, as editor. 
Immediately appeared "A Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris," by 
that celebrated critic and profound Greek scholar, Richard Bentley, clearly 
showing them to be a forgery. Then appeared " Bentley's Dissertation 
Examined," ostensibly by Boyle, but really by Aldrich, Atterbury, and 
other Oxford divines; which seemed to give the Boyle party the advantage, 
till Bentley published his rejoinder, which showed such depth and extent of 
learning, and such powers of reasoning, as completely prostrated all his 
antagonists. But what could not be done by argument, was attempted to 
be done by ridicule, and Pope,^ Swift, Garth, Middleton and others came 
into the field. In the use of this weapon Swift, of course, proved the ablest 
champion, and in that work of infinite humor, entitled " I'he Battle of the 
Books," he not only ridiculed Bentley, but also his friend, the Rev. William 
Wotton, who had opposed Temple in a treatise, entitled, " Reflections upon 
Ancient and Modern Learning."^ 

" Sir William Temple," says Dr. Blair, "is another remarkable writer 
in the style of simplicity. In point of ornament and correctness, he rises a 
degree above Tillotson ; though for correctness, he is not in the highest 
rank. All is easy and flowing in him; he is exceedingly harmonious; 
smoothness, and what may be called amenity, are the distinguishing cha- 
racters of his manner; relaxing, sometimes, as such a manner will naturally 
do, into a prolix and remiss style. No writer whatever has stamped upon 
his style a more lively impression of his own character." 

PLEASURES OF A RURAL LIFE. 

For my own part, as the country life, and this part of it more 
particularly, (namely, gardening,) were the inclination of my 

* Phalaris was a tyrant of Agrigentum, in Sicily, who flourished more than 
five hundred years before Christ. The Epistles which bear his name, and 
which are utterly worthless in a literary point of view, were probably written 
by some rhetorician or sophist, in the time of the Caesars. 

2 Pope says that Boyle wrote only the narrative of what passed between 
him and the booksellers, which, too, was corrected for him ; that Freind, the 
master of Westminster school, and Atterbury wrote the body of the criti- 
cisms ; and that Dr. King wrote the droll argument to prove that Dr. Bentley 
was not the author of the Dissertation on the Epistles. 

= This famous controversy excited the literary world for years. Eustice 
Budge)], the greatest contributor to the Spectator, next to Addison and Steele., 
published an account of it. 



1689-1702.] TEMPLE. 299 

youth itself, so they are the pleasure of my age; and I can truly 
say, that among many great employments that have fallen to 
my share, I have never asked or sought for any one of them, 
but often endeavored to escape from them, into the ease and 
freedom of a private scene, where a man may go his own way 
and his own pace, in the common paths or circles of life. 

The measure of choosing well is, whether a man likes what 
he has chosen, which, I thank God, has befallen me ; and 
though among the follies of my life, building and planting have 
not been the least, and have cost me more than I have the con- 
fidence to own ; yet they have been fully recompensed by the 
sweetness and satisfaction of this retreat, where, since my reso- 
lution taken of never entering again into any public employ- 
ments, I have passed five years without ever going once to 
town, though I am almost in sight of it, and have a house there 
always ready to receive me. Nor has this been any sort of 
afiectation, as some have thought it, but a mere want of desire 
or humor to make so small a remove. 



COMPARISON BETWEEN HOMER AND VIRGIL. 

Homer was, without dispute, the most universal genius that 
has been known in the world, and Virgil the most accom- 
plished. To the first, must be allowed the most fertile inven- 
tion, the richest vein, the most general knowledge, and the 
most lively expression : to the last, the noblest ideas, the justest 
institution, the wisest conduct, and the choicest elocution. To 
speak in the painter's terms, we find in the works of Homer, 
the most spirit, force, and life ; in those of Virgil, the best 
design, the truest proportions, and the greatest grace ; the color- 
ing in both seems equal, and, indeed, is in both admirable. 
Homier had more fire and rapture, Virgil more light and swift- 
ness ; or, at least, the poetical fire was more raging in one, but 
clearer in the other, which makes the first more amazing, and 
the latter more agreeable. The ore was heavier in one, but in 
the other more refined, and better alloyed to make up excellent 
work. Upon the whole, I think it must be confessed, that 
Homier was of the two, and perhaps of all others, the vastest, 
the sublimest, and the most wonderful ^mzV*/ and that he has 
been generally so esteemed, there cannot be a greater testimony 
given, than what has been by some observed, that not only the 
greatest masters have found in his works the best and truest 
principles of all their sciences or arts, but that the noblest na- 
tions have derived from them the original of their several races, 



300 DRYDEN. [WILLIAM AND MARY 

though it be hardly yet agreed, whether his story be true, or 
fiction. Ill short, these two immortal poets must be allowed 
to have so much excelled in their kinds, as to have exceeded 
all comparison, to have even extinguished emulation, and in a 
manner confined true poetry, not only to their two languages, 
but to their very persons. And I am apt to believe so much of 
the true genius of poetry in general, and of its elevation in 
these two particulars, that I know not, whether of all the num- 
bers of mankind, that live within the compass of a thousand 
years, for one man that is born capable of making such a poet 
as Homer or Virgil, there may not be a thousand born capable 
of making as great generals of armies, or ministers of state, as 
any the most renowned in story. 



JOHN DRYDEX, 1630—1700. 

John Dryden, the celebrated English poet, was born in Aldwincle, in 
Northamptonshire, 1631. He was first educated in Westminster school, 
and afterwards in Trinity College, Cambridge. His first poem that attracted 
notice, was his stanzas on Cromwell's death ; but so e.vceedingly pliable was 
he, that, in 1660, he wrote a congratulatory address to Charles H., on his 
restoraiion to the throne of his ancestors. But this did not " put money in 
his purse," and he was soon obliged to betake himself to what was then a 
more profitable department of poetry, and write for the stage, which he con- 
tinued to do for many years. In these literary labors he debased his genius 
to an extent which no "circumstances of the times" can excuse, by writing 
in a manner and style that entirely harmonized with the licentious spirit and 
taste of the court and age of Charles H. 

In 1663 he succeeded Davenant as Poet Laureate,' which excited the 
envy of those who aspired to the same royal distinction. The most power- 
ful of his enemies were the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Rochester, 
the former of whom ridiculed the poet in that well-known farce called "The 
Rehearsal." In return, Dryden, in 1681, published his satire of "Absalom 
and Achitophel," perhaps the most vigorous as well as the most popular of 
all his poetical writings. This was speedily followed by " The Medal," a 
bitter lampoon on Shaftesbury, and was followed up the next year by " Mac 
Flecknoe,"2 and the second part of "Absalom and Achitophel." These 

' From the Latin laureatus, "crowned with laurel," as those were who 
gained the prize ofpoetry at the Olympic Games. This term is applied to the 
court poets of England, who are expected to write in favor of the reigning 
powers. The office was made patent by Charles I., and the salary fixed at 
;£ 100 and a tierce of wine. 

2 Mac is the Celtic for son,- and Richard Flecknoe was an Irish Roman 
Catholic priest, and a well-known hackneyed poetaster of the day. The lead- 



1689-1702.] DRYDEN. 301 

were all most bitter satires upon his personal enemies, Buckingham, Mon- 
mouth, Shaftesbury, Settle, Shadvvell and others. In "Absalom and 
Achitophel," Monmouth figures under the former, and Shaftesbury under 
the latter name. 

After the accession of James, (1685,) when Popery became the chief 
qualification for court favor, Dryden renounced Protestantism and turned 
Papist. He gained but little by it, though he wrote in defence of the Romish 
faith in " The Hind and the Panther.'" In 1689, one year after the abdica- 
tion of James, he would not take the required oaths to the government of 
William and Mary, and was therefore compelled to resign his office of poet- 
laureate, which, with a salary increased to £300, was conferred on Thomas 
Shadwell, whom Dryden thus satirized in his " Mac Flecknoe." 

The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, 
But Shadwell never deviates into sense. 
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, 
Strike through, and make a lucid interval ; 
But Shadwell's genuine night admits no day.^ 

The latter years of his life were devoted to the translation of Juvenal and 
Perseus, and of the ^neid, by which he is more known than by any of his 
original poetry, if we except the " Ode on St. Cecilia's Day," which he 
" finished at one sitting," as he himself said, while he was engaged in trans- 
lating the Mantuan Bard. This ode ranks among the best lyrical pieces in 
our language ; but it contains some licentiousness of imagery and description 
which justly detracts from its general popularity. His last work was a 
Masque, composed about three weeks before his death, which took place on 
the 1st of May, 1700. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. 

The character of Dryden is not such as to command our respect or esteem. 
He seems to have had no sound principles, either in morals or in religion. 
His movements were those of the weathercock, showing the current of the 
popular breeze. He wrote for the day, and he had his reward,— popularity 
for the time, but comparative neglect with posterity. He derives his fame 
as a poet, as it seems to us, from his cotemporary reputation being handed 
down from generation to generation, and acquiesced in as a matter of course, 
and not from the intrinsic merit of what he has written. Were any person 
called to name any one particular production which shows him to be a great 
poet, he would be sorely puzzled. He could appeal to none as universally 

ing idea of the poem, therefore, is, to represent the solemn inauguration of one 
inferior poet as the successor (" son") of another, in the monarchy of nonsense. 

' The idea of two beasts discussing arguments in theology, and quoting the 
Fathers, excited disgust or merrimentj so that, as a work of controversy, it 
proved a complete failure. 

^ That this is the language of bitter personal enmity no one can doubt, from 
the fact that such a one as Dryden describes would not be honored with such 
a post. Accordingly, a modern critic (Retrospective Review, xvi. 56) says of 
Shadwell, " he was an accomplished observer of human nature, had a ready 
power of seizing the ridiculous in the manners of the times, was a man of 
sense and information, and displayed in his writings a very considerable fund 
of humor." 



302 DRYDEN. [WILLIAM AND MARY 

read, and as universally admired. Not so with all our truly great poets: — 
not so with Milton, or Shakspeare, or Spenser, or Chaucer, or Cowper, or 
Young, or Pope, or Gray, or many others. Whenever their names are 
mentioned the mind at once reverts to their undying productions. Johnson, 
in an elaborate piece of ambitious aniiihetic criticism, has compared Pope 
with Dryden, rather to the advantage of the latter. I think most unjustly 
so; for what has Dryden written equal to the " Rape of the Lock," or " The 
Messiah," or the " Essay on Man," or the " Essay on Criticism ?" Where 
Dryden is quoted once, Pope is, a hundred times. Where one edition of 
Dryden's poems is published, those of the bard of Twickingham are sold by 
the scores. Even his satires, in which he excelled, are by no means equal 
to Pope's in vigor or pungency, and certainly not in smoothness. As to his 
dramas they are now entirely forgotten, as most of them deserve to be. 

What an instructive lesson the cise of Dryden reads to men of intellect. 
Endowed with abilities of the highest order, he was clearly capable of pro- 
ducing such works as posterity would " not willingly let die." But instead 
of spending his mighty strength upon those principles of immutable truth and 
of universal human nature, which will ever find a response in the human heart 
as long as there are hearts to feel, he wasted his time and debased his ge- 
nius, by writing on subjects of merely temporal interest, and in such a 
manner as to be in keeping with the corrupt sentiments and the licentious 
spirit of the age. When will men of genius, capable of e.xerting a mighty 
influence for good, for all coming time, learn to trample under their feet the 
false and debasing sentiments, dishonoring to God and degrading to man, 
that exist around them, and rise to immortality by the only sure paths, — 
virtue and truth?' 



CHARACTER OF SHAFTESBURY.^ 

Of these the false Achitophcl was first; 

A name to all succeeding ages curst: 

For close designs and crooked counsels fit; 

Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of Mit; 

Restless, unfix"d in principles and place; 

In powder unpleas'd, impatient of disgrace : 

A fiery soul, which, working out its way, 

Fretted the pigtny body to decay, 

And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay. 

A daring pilot in extremity; 

Pleas'd with the danger when the waves went high, 

1 Read two articles on Dryden in the Retrospective Review, i. 113, and 
iv. .55 : also, one in the Edinburgh, xiii. 116, and another in Macaulay's Mis- 
cellanies, i. 127. Also, in Blair's Lectures, Lect. xviii., and in Hallam's 
Literature, pp. 377 and 37S. The best edition of Dryden's works is that by 
Sir Walter Scott, 18 vols. Svo. Edinburgh, 1821. 

2 This is the best drawn of any in " Absalom and Achitophel," and free 
from much of the coarseness that is found in the other portraits. 



1689-1702.] DRYDEN. 303 

He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit, 

Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit. 

Great wits are sure to madness near allied, 

And thin partitions do their bounds divide ;' 

Else why should he, with wealth and honor blest, 

Refuse his age the needful hours of rest? 

Punish a body which he could not please ; 

Bankrupt of hfe, yet prodigal of ease? 

And all to leave what with his toil he won, 

To that unfeather"d two-legg"d thing, a son. 

In friendship false, implacable in hate; 

Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state: 

To compass this, the triple bond he broke, 

The pillars of the public safety shook, 

And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke : 

Then, seized with fear, yet still affecting fame, 

Usurp'd a patriot's all-atoning name. 

So easy still it proves, in factious times. 

With public zeal to cancel private crimes; 

How safe is treason, and how sacred ill. 

Where none can sin against the people's will! 

Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known, 

Since in another's guilt they find their own! 

Yet fame deserv'd no enemy can grudge ; 

The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge. 

In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin 

With more discerning eyes or hands more clean, 

Unbrib'd, unsought, the wretched to redress, 

Swift of despatch, and easy of access. 

Oh ! had he been content to serve the crown 

With virtues only proper for the gown; 

Or had the rankness of the soil been freed 

From cockle, that oppress'd the noble seed ; 

David for him his tuneful harp had strung, 

And heaven had wanted one immortal song. 

But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand ; 

And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land. 

Achitophel, grown weary to possess 

A lawful fame, and lazy happiness, 

Disdaiu'd the golden fruit to gather free. 

And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree. 

^ The proposition of Dryden, that great wit is allied to madness, will not 
bear the test of scrutiny. It has been successfully combated by Hazlitt and 
Charles Lamb. " The greatest wits," says Lamb,'" will ever be found to be 
the sanest writers. It is impossible for the mind to conceive of a mad Shak- 
speare. The greatness of wit, by which the poetic talent is here chiefly to be 
understood, manifests itself in the admirable balance of all the faculties. 
Madness is the disproportionate straining or excess of any one of them." 
Shaftesbury's restlessness was owing to his ambition and his vanity; to a want 
of judgment and principle, not an excess of wit. 



304 DRYDEN. [WILLIAM AND MARY 



OX MILTOX. 

Three poets, in three distant ages born, 
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. 
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed, 
The next in majesty; in both the last. 
The force of nature could no further go; 
To make a third, she joind the other two. 



VEM CREATOR SPIRITUS, 

Paraphrased from the Latin Hymn. 

Creator Spirit, by whose aid 

The world's foundations first were laid, 

Come visit every pious mind; 

Come pour thy joys on human kind ; 

From sin and sorrow set us free, 

And make thy temples worthy thee. 

source of uncreated Ught, 
The Father's promised Paraclete I^ 
Thrice holy fount, thrice holy fire, 
Our hearts with heavenly love inspire; 
Come, and thy sacred unction bring 
To sanctify us, while we sing. 

Plenteous of grace, descend from high, 

Rich in thy sevenfold energy! 

Thou strength of his Almighty hand, 

Whose power does heaven and earth command. 

Proceechng Spirit, our defence. 

Who dost the gift of tongues dispense, 

And crownst thy gift with eloquence ! 

Refine and purge our earthly parts; 
But, oh, inflame and fire our hearts ! 
Our frailties help, our vice control, 
Submit the senses to the soul; 
And when rebellious they are grown, 
Then lay thy hand, and hold them down. 

Chase from our minds th' infernal foe, 
And peace, the fruit of love, bestow; 
And, lest our feet should step astray, 
Protect and guide us in the way. 

Make us eternal truths receive. 
And practise all that we believe : 
Give us thyself, that we may see 
The Father, and the Son, by thee. 

" Come, Creator Spirit." 

''Paraclete," a Greek word signifying "Comforter. 



1689-1702.] DRYDEN. 305 

Immortal honor, endless fame, 
Attend th' Almighty Father's name: 
The Saviour Son be glorify'd, 
Who for lost man's redemption dy'd : 
And equal adoration be, 
Eternal Paraclete, to thee. 



ENJOYMENT OF THE PRESENT HOUR RECOMMENDED. 

Imitated from Horace. 

Enjoy the present smiling hour, 
And put it out of Fortune's pow"r : 
The tide of business, like the running stream. 
Is sometimes high, and sometimes low, 

And always in extreme. 
Now with a noiseless gentle course 
It keeps within the middle bed; 
Anon it lifts aloft the head, 
And bears down all before it with impetuous force ; 
And trunks of trees come rolling down; 
Sheep and their folds together drown : 
Both house and homestead into seas are borne; 
And rocks are from their old foundations torn ; 
And woods, made thin with winds, their scatter'd honors mourn. 

Happy the man, and happy he alone, 

He who can call to-day his own : 

He who, secure within, can say. 
To-morrow do thy "worst, for I have liv'd to-day. 

Be fair or foul, or rain or shine. 
The joys I have possess'd, in spite of fate, are mine. 

Not heaven itself upon the past has power ; 
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour. 

Fortune, that with malicious joy 

Does man, her slave, oppress, 
Proud of her office to destroy, 

Is seldom pleas'd to bless : 
Still various, and inconstant still, 
But with an inclination to be ill. 

Promotes, degrades, delights in strife, 

And makes a lottery of life. 
I can enjoy her while she's kind ; 
But when she dances in the wind, 

And shakes her wings, and will not stay, 

I puff the prostitute away : 
The little or the much she gave is quietly resigned : 

Content with poverty, my soul I arm ; 

And virtue, though in rags, wih keep me warm. 

What is't to me, 
Who never sail in her unfaithful sea, 
20 



306 DRYDEN. [WILLIAM AND MARY 

If storms arise, and clouds grow black j 
If the mast split, and threaten wreck? 
Then let the greedy merchant fear 

For his ill-gotten gain; 
And pray to gods that will not hear, 
While the debating winds and billows bear 

His wealth into the main. 
For me, secure from Fortune's blows, 
Secure of what I cannot lose, 
In my small pinnace I can sail, 
Contemning all the blustering roar; 

And running with a merry gale, 
With friendly stars my safety seek, 
Within some little winding creek, 

And see the storm ashore. 

In speaking thus of Dryden, we mean to be understood as having refer- 
ence to his poetry. But these remarks are not equally applicable to his 
prose. Here he has written upon subjects of general interest, and here he 
has received general commendation. Here, too, as to style, all is clear, 
vigorous, elegant. " No writer, indeed," says Dr. Drake, "seems to have 
studied the genius of our language with happier success. If in elegance 
and grammatical precision he has since been exceeded, to none need he 
give way, in point of vigor, variety, richness, and spirit." His chief prose 
compositions are his " Essay on Satire," his Prefaces, and his " Essay on 
Dramatic Poetry." Of the latter. Dr. Johnson says, that it "was the first 
regular and valuable treatise on the art of writing. His portraits of the 
EngUsh dramatists are wrought whh great spirit and diligence. The account 
of Shakspeare may stand as a perpetual model of encomiastic criticism ; 
being lofty without exaggeration. In a few lines is exhibited a character so 
extensive in its comprehension and so curious in its limitations, that nothing 
can be added, diminished, or reformed ; nor can the editors and admirers of 
Shakspeare, in all their emulation and reverence, boast of much more than 
of having diffused and paraphrased this epitome of excellence, — of having 
changed Dryden's gold for baser metal, of lower value though of greater 
bulk."' 

SHAKSPEARE. 

To begin, then, with Shakspeare. He was the man, who of 
all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most 
comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still pre- 
sent to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily : 

^ The highest compliment ever paid to his diction has been recorded by 
Mr. Malone ; namely, the imitation of Edmund Burke, " who," says the 
critic, " had very diligently read all his miscellaneous essays, which he held 
in high estimation, not only for the instruction which they contain, but on 
account of the rich and numerous prose in which that instruction is con- 
veyed.'» 



1689-1702.] DRYDEN. 307 

when he describes any thing, you more than see it — yon feel 
it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give 
him the greater commendation : he was naturally learned ; he 
needed not the spectacles of books to read nature ; he looked 
inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is everywhere 
alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him 
with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; 
his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling 
into bombast. But he is always great, when some great occa- 
sion is presented to him ; no man can say he ever had a fit 
subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above 
the rest of poets, 

Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.' 

The consideration of this made Mr. Hales of Eton say, that 
there was no subject of which any poet ever writ, but he would 
produce it much better done in Shakspeare ; and however 
others are now generally preferred before him, yet the age 
wherein he lived, which had contemporaries with him, Fletcher 
and Jonson, never equalled them to him in their esteem : and 
in the last king's court, when Ben's reputation was at highest, 
Sir John Suckling, and with him the greater part of the cour- 
tiers, set our Shakspeare far above him. 

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 

Beaumont and Fletcher, of whom I am next to speak, had, 
with the advantage of Shakspeare's wit, which was their pre- 
cedent, great natural gifts, improved by study ; Beaumont espe- 
cially, being so accurate a judge of plays, that Ben Jonson, 
while he lived, submitted all his writings to his censure, and 
'tis thought, used his judgment in correcting, if not contriving, 
all his plots. What value he had for him, appears by the 
verses he writ to him, and therefore I need speak no farther of 
it. The first play that brought Fletcher and him in esteem 
was their " Philaster:" for before that, they had written two or 
three very unsuccessfully: as the like is reported of Ben Jon- 
son, before he writ " Every Man in his Humor." Their plots 
were generally more regular than Shakspeare's, especially those 
which were made before Beaumont's death ; and they under- 
stood and imitated the conversation of gentlemen much better; 
whose wild debaucheries, and quickness of wit in repartees, no 
poet before them could paint as they have done. Humor, 

* " As the cypresses are wont to do among the slender shrubs." 



308 DRYDEN. [WILLIAM AND MARY 

which Ben Jonson derived from particular persons, they made 
it not their business to describe : they represented all the pas- 
sions very lively, but above all, love. I am apt to believe the 
English language in them arrived to its highest perfection ; 
what words have since been taken in, are rather superfluous 
than ornamental. Their plays are now the most pleasant and 
frequent entertainments of the stage ; two of theirs being acted 
through the year, for one of Shakspeare's or Jonson's : the 
reason is, because there is a certain gaiety in their comedies, 
and pathos in their more serious plays, which suits generally 
with all men's humors. Shakspeare's language is likewise a 
little obsolete, and Ben Jonson's wit comes short of theirs. 



BEN JONSON. 

As for Jonson, to whose character I am now arrived if we 
look upon him while he was himself, (for his last plays were 
but his dotages,) I think him the most learned and judicious 
writer which any theatre ever had. He was a most severe 
judge of himself, as well as others. One cannot say he v/anted 
wit, but rather that he was frugal of it. In his works you find 
little to retrench or alter. Wit, and language, and humor, also 
in some measure, we had before him; but something of art 
was wanting to the drama, till he came. He managed his 
strength to more advantage than any who preceded him. You 
seldom find him making love in any of his scenes, or endeavor- 
ing to move the passions ; his genius was too sullen and satur- 
nine to do it gracefully, especially when he knew he came 
after those who had performed both to such a height. Humor 
was his proper sphere; and in that he delighted most to repre- 
sent mechanic people. He was deeply conversant in the 
ancients, both Greek and Latin, and he borrowed boldly from 
them ; there is scarce a poet or historian among the Roman 
authors of those times, whom he has not translated in Sejanus 
and Catiline. But he has done his robberies so openly, that 
one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades 
authors like a monarch ; and what would be theft in other 
poets, is only victory in him. With the spoils of these writers 
he so represents old Rome to us, in his rites, ceremonies, and 
customs, that if one of their poets had written either of his 
tragedies, we had seen less of it than in him. If there was 
any fault in his language, 'twas that he weaved it too closely 
and laboriously, in his comedies especially : perhaps too, he 
did a little too much Romanize our tongue, leaving the words 



1689-1702.] DRYDEN. 309 

which he translated almost as much Latin as he found them ; 
wherein, though he learnedly followed their language, he did 
not enough comply with the idiom of ours. If I would com- 
pare him with Shakspeare, I must acknowledge him the more 
correct poet, but Shakspeare the greater wit. Shakspeare was 
the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets : Jonson was the 
Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing : I admire him, but I 
love Shakspeare. 

CHAUCER AND COWLEY. 

In the first place, as he is the father of English poetry, so 
I hold him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians 
held Homer, or the Romans Virgil. He is a perpetual foun- 
tain of good sense ; learned in all sciences ; and therefore 
speaks properly on all subjects. As he knew what to say, so 
he knows also when to leave off; a continence which is prac- 
tised by few writers, and scarcely by any of the ancients, ex- 
cepting Virgil and Horace. One of our late great poets^ is 
sunk in his reputation, because he could never forgive any con- 
ceit which came in his way ; but swept, like a drag-net, great 
and small. There was plenty enough, but the dishes were ill- 
sorted ; whole pyramids of sweet-meats for boys and women, 
but litde of solid meat for men. All this proceeded not from 
any want of knowledge, but of judgment. Neither did he want 
that in discerning the beauties and faults of other poets, but 
only indulged himself in the luxury of writing ; and perhaps 
knew it was a fault, but hoped the reader would not find it. 
For this reason, though he must always be thought a great 
poet, he is no longer esteemed a good writer ; and for ten im- 
pressions, which his works have had in so many successive 
years, yet at present a hundred books are scarcely purchased 
once a twelve-month ; for, as my last Lord Rochester said, 
though somewhat profanely, Not being of God, he could not 
stand. 

Chaucer followed nature every where ; but was never so 
bold to go beyond her: and there is a great difference of being 
poeta, and nimis poeta, if we may believe Catullus, as much as 
betwixt a modest behavior and affectation. The verse of Chau- 
cer, I confess, is not harmonious to us ; but it is like the elo- 
quence of one whom Tacitus commends — it was auribus istius 
temporis accommodata. They who lived with him, and some- 
time after him, thought it musical, and it continues so even in 

^ Cowley. 



310 DRYDEN. [WILLIAM AND MARY 

our judgment, if compared with the numbers of Lydgate and 
Gower, his contemporaries : there is ihe rude sweetness of a 
Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though not 
perfect. It is true, I cannot go so far as he who published the 
last edition of him;' for he would make us believe the fault is 
in our ears, and that there were really ten syllables in a verse, 
where we find but nine. But this opinion is not worth con- 
futing; it is so gross and obvious an error, that common sense 
(which is a rule in every thing but matters of faith and revela- 
tion) must convince the reader, that equality of numbers in 
every verse which we call heroic, was either not known, or 
not always practised in Chaucer's age. It were an easy matter 
to produce some thousands of his verses, which are lame for 
want of half a foot, and sometimes a whole one, and which no 
pronunciation can make otherwise.^ We can only say, that he 
lived in the infancy of our poetry, and that nothing is brought 
to perfection at the first. We must be children, before we 
grow men. There was an Ennius, and in process of time a 
Lucilius and a Lucretius, before Virgil and Horace. Even after 
Chaucer, there was a Spenser, a Harrington, a Fairfax, before 
Waller and Denham were in being ; and our numbers were in 
their nonage till these last appeared. 

SPENSER AND MILTON. 

In epic poetry the English have only to boast of Spenser 
and Milton, who neither of them wanted either genius or learn- 
ing to have been perfect poets, and yet both of them are 
liable to many censures. For there is no uniformity in the 
design of Spenser; he aims at the accomplishment of no one 
action, he raises up a hero for every one of his adventures, and 
endows each of them with some particular moral virtue, which 
renders them all equal, without subordination or preference. 
Every one is most valiant in his own legend ; only, we must do 
him that justice to observe, that magnanimity, which is the 
character of Prince Arthur, shines throughout the whole poem, 
and succours the rest when they are an distress. The original 
of every knight was then living in the court of Queen Elizabeth ; 
and he attributed to each of them that virtue which he thought 
was most conspicuous in them — an ingenious piece of flattery, 

1 Speght, in 1597. 

2 This position, however, has been completely disproved by Mr. Tyrwhitt, 
who, in his edition of the Canterbury Tales, has admirably explained the 
versification and language of Chaucer, and shown the former to be in general 
correct. 



1689-1702.] DRYDEN. 311 

though it turned not much to his account. Had he lived to 
finish his poem, in the six remaining legends, it had certainly- 
been more of a piece, but could not have been perfect, because 
the model was not true. But Prince Arthur, or his chief patron 
Sir Philip Sidney, whom he intended to make happy by the 
marriage of his Gloriana, dying before him, deprived the poet 
both of means and spirit to accomplish his design. For the 
rest, his obsolete language, and the ill choice of his stanza, are 
faults but of the second magnitude ; for, notwithstanding the 
first, he is still inteUigible, at least after a little practice ; and for 
the last, he is the more to be admired, that, laboring under such 
a difficulty, his verses are so numerous, so various, and so har- 
monious, that only Virgil, whom he professedly imitated, has 
surpassed him among the Romans, and only Mr. Waller among 
the English. 

As for Mr. Milton, whom we all admire with so much justice, 
his subject is not that of a heroic poem, properly so called. His 
design is the losing of our happiness ; his event is not prosper- 
ous, like that of all other epic works ; his heavenly machines 
are many, and his human persons are but two. But I will not 
take Mr. Rymer's work out of his hands : he has promised the 
world a critique on that author, wherein, though he will not 
allow his poem for heroic, I hope he will grant us that his 
thoughts are elevated, his words sounding, and that no man has 
so happily copied the manner of Homer, or so copiously trans- 
lated his Grecisms, and the Latin elegancies of Virgil. It is 
true he runs into a flat of thought sometimes for a hundred lines 
together, but it is when he has got into a track of Scripture.^ 
His antiquated words were his choice, not his necessity; for 
therein he imitated Spenser, as Spenser did Chaucer. And 
though, perhaps, the love of their masters may have transported 
both too far, in the frequent use of them, yet, in my opinion, 
obsolete words may then be laudably revived, when either they 
are more sounding or more significant than those in practice ; 
and when their obscurity is taken away, by joining other words 
to them which clear the sense, according to the rule of Horace, 
for the admission of new words. But in both cases a modera- 
tion is to be observed in the use of them ; for unnecessary coin- 
age, as well as unnecessary revival, runs into aff'ectation; a fault 
to be avoided on either hand. Neither will I justify Milton for 
his blank verse,' though I may excuse him, by the example of 

^ These criticisms on Milton clearly show that Dryden had not the loftiness 
of soul fully to appreciate the merits of the great English bard. 



312 LOCKE. [anne 

Hannibal Caro, and other Italians, who have used it; for what- 
ever causes he alleges for the abolishing of rhyme (which I have 
not now the leisure to examine), his own particular reason is 
plainly this, that rhyme was not his talent; he had neither the 
ease of doing it, nor the graces of it, which is manifest in his 
" Juvenilia," or verses written in his youth, where his rhyme 
is always constrained and forced, and comes hardly from him, 
at an age when the soul is most pliant, and the passion of love 
makes almost every man a rhymer, though not a poet. 



JOHN LOCKE, 1632—1704. 

John Locke, the eminent philosophical writer, was born at Wrington, in 
Somersetshire, on the 29th of August, 1632. He was educated at West- 
minster school, and at the age of nineteen entered the University of Oxford. 
He applied himself with great diligence to the study of classical literature, 
and to the philosophical works of Bacon and Descartes. He made'choice of 
medicine, as a profession, and after taking his degrees in the arts, he prac- 
tised for a short time in the University. But he was soon compelled to 
reUnquish it from the weakness of his constitution. 

In 1664 he visited Berlin, as Secretary to the English minister, but after 
a year he returned to Oxford, where he formed an acquaintance with Lord 
Ashley, afterwards the Earl of Shaftesbury, and accepted his invitation to 
reside in his house ; where he became acquainted with some of the most 
eminent men of the day. Here he drew up a constitution for the government 
of South Carolina, which province had been granted by Charles H. to Lord 
Ashley, with seven others.^ In 1670 he commenced his investigations in 
metaphysical philosophy, and laid the plan of that great work, his "Essay 
on the Human Understanding." In 1675, being apprehensive of consump- 
tion, Locke went to Montpellier, in France, and after residing there four 
years, he was invited to England by the Earl of Shaftesbury, who had been 
restored to favor and appohited president of the new council. But this pros- 
perity was not of long duration, for in 1682, the earl was obliged to flee to 
Holland, to avoid a prosecution for high treason. Locke followed his patron, 
where, even after his death, he continued to reside, for the hostility felt to- 
wards Shaftesbury was transferred to Locke. On the Revolution of 1688, 
he returned with the fleet that brought over the Prince of Orange ; and 
accepted the offer of apartments in the house of his friend Sir Francis 
Masham, in Oates, in Essex, where he resided for the remainder of his life, 

1 The main provisions of his constitution were, that " all men are free and 
equal by nature," and that " the object of government is the security of per- 
sons and property." It is hard to say whether the sad or the ludicrous pre- 
vails, when contrasting these noble principles of that great philosopher with 
the present practice of thai same state. 



1702-1714.] LOCKE. 313 

devoting it mostly to the study of the Scriptures, and died on the 28th of 
October, 1704. 

The great work of Locke, and that which has immortahzed his name, is 
(1), his "Essay concerning Human Understanding." It applies the Ba- 
conian method of observation and experience to estabhsh a theory of human 
knowledge, showing, that we have no innate ideas; that the only source of 
our knowledge is experience; that this experience is two-fold, either internal 
or external, according as it is employed about sensible objects or the ope- 
rations of our minds ; and hence that there are two kinds of ideas, — ideas of 
sensation, and ideas of reflection. These positions, with many others col- 
lateral and connected, this great work establishes on a basis that can never 
be shaken.* 

His other works, scarcely inferior in value and importance to his "Essay," 
were (2), " On the Reasonableness of Christianity," pubhshed in 1695. 
This was intended to aid the reigning monarch, William HI., in his design 
to reconcile and unite all sects of professing Christians ; and accordingly, the 
object of the tract was to determine what, amid so many conflicting views 
of religion, were the pointsof belief common to all. (3.) " Letters on Tole- 
ration." (4.) " Two Treatises on Civil Government," in defence of the 
Revolution, and in answer to the partizans of the exiled king, who called 
the existing government an usurpation. In this he maintains conclusively, 
that the legitimacy of a government depends solely and ultimately on the 
popular sanction, or the consent of men, making use of their reason, to unite 
and form societies. (5.) " Thoughts on Education." (6.) " A Discourse on 
Miracles." (7.) " Paraphrases, with notes, of the Epistles of St. Paul," 
together with, (8,) an " Essay for the Understanding of St. Paul's Epistles, 
by consulting St. Paul himself." To these were added many minor treatises, 
with that most useful book, entitled, " A New Method of a Common Place 
Book." 

As to the style of Locke, Dr. Drake makes the following just remarks, 
" The diction he has adopted is, in general, such as does honor to his judg- 
ment. Relinquishing ornament and studied cadences, he is merely solicitous 
to convey his ideas with perspicuity and precision. No affectation, no con- 
ceits, no daring metaphors or inverted periods, disfigure his pages; all is 
clear, easy, and natural, exhibiting a plain and simple style accommodated 
to the purposes of philosophy." 

As to his personal character it was in complete harmony with the opinions, 
political, moral, and religious, which he so zealously and so ably advocated. 
A more happy combination of the Christian, the gentleman, and the scholar, 
has, perhaps, never been exhibited than in the person of this distinguished 
philosopher. While his talents were devoted to works which take the 
highest rank in English Hterature, his pure and virtuous hfe gave the most 
satisfactory proof of the practical efficacy of a piety, the sincerity of which 

* "Few books," says Sir James Mackintosh, "have contributed more to 
rectify prejudice, to undermine established errors, to diffuse a just mode of 
thinking, to excite a fearless spirit of inquiry, and yet to contain it within the 
boundaries which nature has prescribed to the human understanding." 



314 LOCKE. [anne 

was clearly proved by his efforts to show that all the parts of the Christian 
system are reconcileable to human reason.' 



PRACTICE AND HABIT. 

We are born with faculties and powers capable almost of 
anything, such at least as would carry us farther than can be 
easily imagined; but it is only the exercise of those powers 
which gives us ability and skill in anything, and leads us to- 
wards perfection. 

A middle-aged ploughman will scarce ever be brought to the 
carriage and language of a gentleman, though his body be as 
well proportioned, and his joints as supple, and his natural parts 
not any way inferior. The legs of a dancing-master, and the 
fingers of a musician, fall, as it were, naturally, without thought 
or pains, into regular and admirable motions. Bid them change 
their parts, and they will in vain endeavor to produce like mo- 
tions in the members not used to them, and it will require 
length of time and long practice to attain but some degrees of a 
like ability. What incredible and astonishing actions do we 
find rope-dancers and tumblers bring their bodies to ! not but 
that sundry in almost all manual arts are as wonderful ; but I 
name those which the world takes notice of for such, because, 
on that very account, they give money to see them. All these 
admired motions, beyond the reach and almost the conception 
of unpractised spectators, are nothing but the mere effects of 
use and industry in men, whose bodies have nothing peculiar 
in them from those of the amazed lookers on. 

As it is in the body, so it is in the mind ; practice makes it 
what it is ; and most even of those excellencies which are looked 
on as natural endowments, will be found, when examined into 
more narrowly, to be the product of exercise, and to be raised 
to that pitch only by repeated actions. Some men are remarked 
for pleasantness in raillery, others for apologues and apposite 
diverting stories. This is apt to be taken for the effect of pure 
nature, and that the rather, because it is not got by rules, and 
those who excel in either of them, never purposely set them- 
selves to the study of it as an art to be learnt. But yet it is 

* ''His writings have diffused throughout the civilized world the love of 
civil liberty; the spirit of toleration and charity in religious differences ; the 
disposition to reject whatever is obscure, fantastic, or hypothetical in specu- 
lation; to abandon problems which admit of no solution; to distrust whatever 
eannot be clearly expressed; and to prefer those studies which most directly 
contribute to human happiness." — Sir James Mackintosh. 



1702-1714.] LOCKE. 315 

true, that at first some lucky hit which took with somebody, 
and gained him commendation, encouraged him to try again, 
inclined his thoughts and endeavors that way, till at last he 
insensibly got a facility in it without perceiving how; and that 
is attributed wholly to nature, which was much more the effect 
of use and practice. I do not deny that natural disposition may 
often give the first rise to it; but that never carries a man far 
without use and exercise, and it is practice alone that brings 
the powers of the mind as well as those of the body to their 
perfection. Many a good poetic vein is buried under a trade, 
and never produces anything for want of improvement. We 
see the ways of discourse and reasoning are very different, even 
concerning the same matter, at court and in the university. And 
he that will go but from Westminster Hall to the Exchange, 
Avill find a different genius and turn in their ways of talking ; 
and one cannot think that all whose lot fell in the city were 
born with different parts from those who were bred at the uni- 
versity or inns of court. 

To what purpose all this, but to show that the difference, so 
observable in men's understandings and parts, does not arise 
so much from the natural faculties, as acquired habits? He 
would be laughed at that should go about to make a fine dancer 
out of a country hedger, at past fifty. And he will not have 
much better success who shall endeavor at that age to make a 
man reason well, or speak handsomely, who has never been 
used to it, though you should lay before him a collection of all 
the best precepts of logic or oratory. Nobody is made anything 
by hearing of rules, or laying them up in his memory; practice 
must settle the habit of doing without reflecting on the rule ; 
and you may as well hope to make a good painter or musician, 
extempore, by a lecture and instruction in the arts of music and 
painting, as a coherent thinker, or strict reasoner, by a set of 
rules, showing him wherein right reasoning consists. 

This being so, that defects and weakness in men's under- 
standings, as well as other faculties, come from want of a right 
use of their own minds, I am apt to think the fault is generally 
mislaid upon nature, and there is often a complaint of want of 
parts, when the fault lies in want of a due improvement of them. 
We see men frequently dexterous and sharp enough in making 
a bargain, who, if you reason with them about matters of reli- 
gion, appear perfectly stupid. 



316 LOCKE. [anne 



INJUDICIOUS HASTE IN STUDY. 

The eagerness and strong bent of the mind after knowledge, 
if not warily regulated, is often a hindrance to it. It still presses 
into farther discoveries and new objects, and catches at the 
variety of knowledge, and therefore often stays not long enough 
on what is before it, to look into it as it should, for haste to 
pursue what is yet out of sight. He that rides post through a 
country may be able, from the transient view, to tell in general 
how the parts lie, and may be able to give some loose descrip- 
tion of here a mountain and there a plain, here a morass 
and there a river ; woodland in one part and savannahs in an- 
other. Such superficial ideas and observations as these he may 
collect in galloping over it; but the more useful observations of 
the soil, plants, animals, and inhabitants, with their several sorts 
and properties, must necessarily escape him ; and it is seldom 
men ever discover the rich mines without some digging. Na- 
ture commonly lodges her treasures and jewels in rocky ground. 
If the matter be knotty, and the sense lies deep, the mind must 
stop and buckle to it, and stick upon it with labor and thought, 
and close contemplation, and not leave it until it has mastered 
tlie difficulty and got possession of truth. But here care must 
be taken to avoid the other extreme : a man must not stick at 
every useless nicety, and expect mysteries of science in every 
trivial question or scruple that he may raise. He that will stand 
to pick up and examine every pebble that comes in his way, is 
as unlikely to return enriched and laden with jewels, as the 
other that travelled full speed. Truths are not the better nor 
the worse for their obviousness or difficulty, but their value is 
to be measured by their usefulness and tendency. Insignificant 
observations should not take up any of our minutes ; and those 
that enlarge our view, and give light towards further and useful 
discoveries, should not be neglected, though they stop our course, 
and spend some of our time in a fixed attention. 

IMPORTANCE OF MORAL EDUCATION. 

Under whose care soever a child is put to be taught during 
the tender and flexible years of his life, this is certain; it should 
be one who thinks Latin and languages the least part of educa- 
tion ; one who, knowing how much virtue and a well-tempered 
soul is to be preferred to any sort of learning or language, 
makes it his chief business to form the mind of his scholars, 
and give that a right disposition ; which, if once got, though all 



1702-1714.] LOCKE. 317 

the rest should be neglected, would in due time produce all the 
rest; and which, if it be not got, and settled so as to keep out 
ill and vicious habits — languages, and sciences, and all the other 
accomplishments of education, will be to no purpose but to make 
the worse or more dangerous man.^ 



THE RIGHT IMPROVEMENT OF HISTORY. 

The stories of Alexander and Caesar, farther than they instruct 
us in the art of living well, and furnish us with observations of 
wisdom and prudence, are not one jot to be preferred to the 
history of Robin Hood, or the Seven Wise Masters. I do not 
deny but history is very useful, and very instructive of human 
life ; but if it be studied only for the reputation of being a his- 
torian, it is a very empty thing; and he that can tell all the par- 
ticulars of Herodotus and Plutarch, Curtius and Livy, without 
making any other use of them, may be an ignorant man with 
a good memory, and with all his pains hath only filled his head 
with Christmas tales. And, which is worse, the greatest part 
of history being made up of wars and conquests, and their style, 
especially the Romans, speaking of valor as the chief if not the 
only virtue, we are in danger to be misled by the general cur- 
rent and business of history ; and, looking on Alexander and 
Caesar, and such-like heroes, as the highest instances of human 
greatness, because they each of them caused the death of several 
hundred thousand men, and the ruin of a much greater number, 
over-ran a great part of the earth, and killed the inhabitants to 
possess themselves of their countries — we are apt to make 
butchery and rapine the chief marks and very essence of human 
greatness. And if civil history be a great dealer of it, and to 
many readers thus useless, curious and difficult inquirings in 
antiquity are much more so; and the exact dimensions of the 
Colossus, or figure of the Capitol, the ceremonies of the Greek 
and Roman marriages, or who it was that first coined money; 

^ " Next in rank and in efficacy to that pure and holy source of moral influ- 
ence — the mother — is that of the school-master. It is powerful already. 
What would it be if, in every one of those school districts which we now count 
by annually increasing thousands, there were to be found one teacher well- 
informed without pedantry, religious without bigotry or fanaticism, proud and 
fond of his profession, and honored in the discharge of its duties ! How wide 
would be the intellectual, the moral influence of such a body of men. But to 
raise up a body of such men, as numerous as the wants and dignity of the 
country demand, their labors must be fitly remunerated, and themselves and 
their calling cherished and honored." — Discourse of Hon. Gulian C. Ver- 
jplanck, of New York. 



318 LOCKE. [anne 

these, I confess, set a man well off in the world, especially 
amongst the learned, but set him very little on in his way. * 

I shall only add one word, and then conclude : and that is, 
that whereas in the beginning I cut off history from our study 
as a useless part, as certainly it is where it is read only as a 
tale that is told ; here, on the other side, I recommend it to one 
who hath well settled in his mind the principles of morality, 
and knows how to make a judgment on the actions of men, as 
one of the most useful studies he can apply himself to. There 
he shall see a picture of the world and the nature of mankind, 
and so learn to think of men as they are. There he shall see 
the rise of opinions, and find from what slight and sometimes 
shameful occasions some of them have taken their rise, which 
yet afterwards have had great authority, and passed almost for 
sacred in the world, and borne down all before them. There, 
also, one may learn great and useful instructions of prudence, 
and be warned against the cheats and rogueries of the world, 
with many more advantages which I shall not here enumerate. 

ORTHODOXY AND HERESY. 

The great division among Christians is about opinions. 
Every sect has its set of them, and that is called Orthodoxy; 
and he that professes his assent to them, though with an implicit 
faith, and without examining, is orthodox, and in the Avay to 
salvation. But if he examines, and thereupon questions any 
one of them, he is presently suspected of heresy ; and if he 
oppose them or hold the contrary, he is presently condemned 
as in a damnable error, and in the sure way to perdition. Of 
this, one may say, that there is nor can be nothing more wrong. 
For he that examines, and upon a fair examination embraces an 
error for a truth, has done his duty more than he who embraces 
the profession (for the truths themselves he does not embrace) 
of the truth, without having examined whether it be true or no. 
And he that has done his duty according to the best of his 
ability, is certainly more in the way to heaven than he who has 
done nothing of it. For if it be our duty to search after truth, 
he certainly that has searched after it, though he has not found 
it, in some points has paid a more acceptable obedience to the 
will of his Maker, than he that has not searched at all, but pro- 
fesses to have found truth, when he has neither searched nor 
found it. For he that takes up the opinions of any church in 
the lump, without examining them, has truly neither searched 
after nor found truth, but has only found those that he thinks 



1702-1714.] SOUTH. 319' 

have found truth, and so receives what they say with an implicit 
faith, and so pays them the homage that is due only to God, 
who cannot be deceived, nor deceive. In this way the several 
churches (in which, as one may observe, opinions are preferred 
to life, and orthodoxy is that which they are concerned for, 
and not morals) put the terms of salvation on that which the 
Author of our salvation does not put them in. The believing 
of a collection of certain propositions, which are called and 
esteemed fundamental articles, because it has pleased the com- 
pilers to put them into their confession of faith, is made the 
condition of salvation. 



DUTY OF PRESERVING HEALTH. 

If by gaining knowledge we destroy our health, we labor for 
a thing that will be useless in our hands ; and if, by harassing 
our bodies (though with a design to render ourselves more use- 
ful), we deprive ourselves of the abilities and opportunities of 
doing that good we might have done with a meaner talent, 
which God thought sufficient for us, by having denied us the 
strength to improve it to that pitch which men of stronger con- 
stitutions can attain to, we rob God of so much service, and our 
neighbor of all that help which, in a state of health, with mode- 
rate knowledge, we might have been able to perform. He that 
sinks his vessel by overloading it, though it be with gold, and 
silver, and precious stones, will give his owner but an ill ac- 
count of his voyage. 



ROBERT SOUTH, 1633—1716. 

Dr. Robert South, a divine celebrated for his wit as well as his learmng, 
was born at Hackney, in Middlesex, in 1633, being the son of a London 
merchant. He entered Westminster school, under Dr. Busby, in 1647, and 
rendered himself remarkable the following year, by reading the Latin prayers 
in the school on the day of the execution of Charles I., and by praying for 
him by name. This is a key to his whole character. Throughout his life 
he was a great Tory, and a most bigoted high-churchman, cordially hating, 
and intemperately abusing all who favored a popular government, or greater 
spirituality in religion. In one of his sermons, for instance, he maintains 
that " kings are endowed with more than ordinary sagacity and quickness of 
understanding ; they have a singular courage and presence of mind in cases 
of difficulty ; and their hearts are disposed to virtuous courses." A man 
that could so write, with one half of the kings of his own country before his 



320 SOUTH. [george I. 

eyes, to say nothing of those of other countries, must be so blinded by pre- 
judice as to make his opinions of very Uttle worth. But, by such kings as 
the second Charles and the second James, such a divine might expect to be 
rewarded. Accordingly he was advanced from one preferment to another, 
was made doctor of divinity, and also one of Charles Second's chaplains, 
and on the accession of James he was offered an archbishopric in Ireland. 
This, however, he declined from a desire to live more privately, and the 
latter part of his hfe he employed in preparing his sermons for the press. 
He died in 1716. 

The sermons of South are curious and witty productions, containing a 
great amount of strong, masculine sense, and are practical in an eminent 
degree, as the following extracts show. 



THE WILL FOR THE DEED. 

The third instance in which men used to plead the will instead 
of the deed, shall be in duties of cost and expense. 

Let a business of expensive charity be proposed ; and then, 
as I showed before, that, in matters of labor, the lazy person 
could find no hands wherewith to work ; so neither, in this 
case, can the religious miser find any hands wherewith to give. 
It is wonderful to consider how a command or call to be liberal, 
either upon a civil or religious account, all of a sudden impo- 
verishes the rich, breaks the merchant, shuts up every private 
man's exchequer, and makes those men in a minute have no- 
thing who, at the very same instant, want nothing to spend. 
So that, instead of relieving the poor, such a command strangely 
increases their number, and transforms rich men into beggars 
presently. For, let the danger of their prince and country 
knock at their purses, and call upon them to contribute against 
a public enemy or calamity, then immediately they have no- 
thing, and their riches upon such occasions (as Solomon ex- 
presses it) never fail to make themselves wings, and fly away. 

But do men in good earnest think that God will be put off 
so ? or can they imagine that the law of God will be baffled 
with a lie clothed in a scoff? 

For such pretences are no better, as appears from that nota- 
ble account given us by the apostle of this windy, insignificant 
charity of the will, and of the worthlessness of it, not enlivened 
by deeds : " If a brother or a sister be naked, and destitute of 
daily food, and one of you say unto them. Depart in peace, be 
ye warmed and filled ; notwithstanding ye give them not those 
things which are needful to the body ; what doth it profit ?" 
Profit, does he say ? Why, it profits just as much as fair words 



1714-1727.] SOUTH. 321 

command the market, as good wishes buy food and raiment, 
and pass for current payment in the shops. 

Come we now to a rich old pretender to godliness, and tell 
him that there is such a one, a man of good family, good edu- 
cation, and who has lost all his estate for the king, now ready 
to rot in prison for debt; come, what will you give towards his 
release ? Why, then answers the will instead of the deed, as 
much the readier speaker of the two, " The truth is, I always 
had a respect for such men ; I love them with all my heart ; 
and it is a thousand pities that any that had served the king so 
faithfully should be in such want." So say I too, and the more 
shame is it for the whole nation that they should be so. But 
still, what will you give ? Why, then, answers the man of 
.mouth-charity again, and tells you that " you could not come 
in a worse time ; that now-a-days money is very scarce with 
him, and that therefore he can give nothing; but he will be 
sure to pray for the poor gentleman." 

Ah, thou hypocrite ! when thy brother has lost all that ever 
he had, and lies languishing, and even gasping under the utmost 
extremities of poverty and distress, dost thou think thus to lick 
him up again only with thy tongue ? Just like that old formal 
hocus, who denied a beggar a farthing, and put him off with 
his blessing. 

Why, what are the prayers of a covetous wretch worth ? 
what will thy blessing go for ? what will it buy ? Is this the 
charity that the apostle here, in the text, presses upon the Co- 
rinthians ?' This the case in which God accepts the willing- 
ness of the mind instead of the liberality of the purse? No, 
assuredly ; but the measures that God marks out to thy charity 
are these : thy superfluities must give place to thy neighbor's 
great convenience ; thy convenience must veil thy neighbor's 
necessity ; and, lastly, thy very necessities must yield to thy 
neighbor's extremity. 

COVETOUSNESS. 

Of covetousness we may truly say, that it makes both the 
Alpha and Omega in the devil's alphabet, and that it is the first 
vice in corrupt nature which moves, and the last which dies. 
For look upon any infant, and as soon as it can but move a 
hand, we shall see it reaching out after something or other 

1 " For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a 
man hath, and not according to that he hath not." — 2 Cor. viii. 12. 

21 



1 



322 SOUTH. [george I. 

which it should not have ; and he who does not know it to be 
the proper and peculiar sin of old age, seems himself to have 
the dotage of that age upon him, whether he has the years 
or no. 

The covetous person lives as if the world were made alto- 
gether for him, and not he for the world, to take in every tiling, 
and to part with nothing. Charity is accounted no grace witli 
him, nor gratitude any virtue. The cries of the poor never 
enter into his ears; or if they do, he has always one ear readier 
to let them out than the other to take them in. In a word, by 
his rapines and extortions, he is always for making as many 
poor as he can, but for relieving none, whom he either finds or 
makes so. So that it is a question, whether his heart be harder, 
or his fist closer. In a word, he is a pest and a monster: 
greedier than the sea, and barrener than the shore. 

THE GLORY OF THE CLERGY. 

God is the fountain of honor; and the conduit by which he 
conveys it to the sons of men are virtues and generous prac- 
tices. Some, indeed, may please and promise themselves high 
matters from full revenues, stately palaces, court interests, and 
great dependences. But that which makes the clergy glorious, 
is to be knowing in their profession, unspotted in their lives, 
active and laborious in their charges, bold and resolute in op- 
posing seducers, and daring to look vice in the face, though 
never so potent and illustrious.' And, lasdy, to be gentle, 
courteous, and compassionate to all. These are our robes and 
our maces, our escutcheons and highest tides of honor. 

THE PLEASURES OF AMUSEMENT AND INDUSTRY COMPARED. 

Nor is that man less deceived that thinks to maintain a con- 
stant tenure of pleasure by a continual pursuit of sports and 
recreations. The most voluptuous and loose person breathing, 
were he but tied to follow his hawks and his hounds, his dice 
and his courtships every day, would find it the greatest torment 
and calamity that could befall him ; he would fly to the mines 
and galleys for his recreation, and to the spade and the mattock 
for a diversion from the misery of a continual unintermitted 
pleasure. But, on the contrary, the providence of God has so 

* This is in accordance with Ezekiel xxxiii. 1-6. If the pulpit be silent on 
great national sins, it is certainly false to its high trust. 



1714-1727.] PARXELL. 323 

ordered the course of things, that there is no action, the useful- 
ness of which has made it the matter of duty and of a profes- 
sion, but a man may bear the continual pursuit of it without 
loathing and satiety. The same shop and trade that employs 
a man in his youth, employs him also in his age. Every 
morning he rises fresh to his hammer and anvil; he passes the 
day singing ; custom has naturalized his labor to him ; his shop 
is his element, and he cannot with any enjoyment of himself 
live out of it. 



THE EYE OF CONSCIENCE. 

That the eye of conscience may be always quick and lively, 
let constant use be sure to keep it constantly open, and thereby 
ready and prepared to admit and let in those heavenly beams 
which are always streaming forth from God upon minds fitted 
to receive them. And to this purpose let a man fly from every- 
thing which may leave either a foulness or a bias upon it; let 
him dread every gross act of sin ; for one great stab may as cer- 
tainly and speedily destroy life as forty lesser wounds. Let 
him carry a jealous eye over every growing habit of sin; let 
him keep aloof from all commerce and fellowship with any 
vicious and base affection, especially from all sensuality: let 
him keep himself untouched with the hellish, unhallowed heats 
of lust and the noisome steams and exhalations of intemperance ; 
let him bear himself above that sordid and low thing, that utter 
contradiction to all greatness of mind — covetousness: let him 
disenslave himself from the pelf of the world, from that amor 
sceleratus hahendi.^ \} Lastly, let him learn so to look upon the 
honors, the pomp, and greatness of the world, as to look through 
them. Fools indeed are apt to be blown up by them and to 
sacrifice all for them : sometimes venturing their heads only to 
get a feather in their caps. 



THOMAS PARNELL, 1679—1717. 

Thomas Parnell was born in Dublin in 1679. After receiving the ele- 
ments of education at a grammar school, he was admitted to the University 
of Dublin; after leaving which he was ordained a deacon, in 1700, and in 
five years afterwards, he was promoted to the archdeaconry of Clogher. Up 
to this time he had sided with the Tory party, but now found it convenient to 

' " That wicked love of acquisition." 



324 PARNELL. [gEORGE I. 

change his politics ; he therefore went over to the Whigs, who received him 
with open arms, deeming him a valuable auxihary to their cause. Parnell 
endeavored to recommend himself by his eloquence in the pulpits of London, 
but from the new ministry he received nothing more substantial than caresses 
and empty protestations. To embitter his disappointment he lost, in 1712, 
his amiable wife, to whom he was affectionately devoted. His private friends, 
however, were not unmindful of his interests, and obtained for him a vicar- 
age in the vicinity of Dublin, worth £400 per annum : but he did not Uve long 
to enjoy his promotion. He died in 1717, in the thirty-eighth year of his 
age. 

" The compass of Parnell's poetry is not extensive, but its tone is pecu- 
liarly delightful : not from mere correctness of expression, to which some 
critics have stinted its praises, but from the graceful and reserved sensibility 
that accompanied his polished phraseology. The studied happiness of his 
diction does not spoil its simpUcity. His poetry is like a flower that has 
been trained and planted by the skill of the gardener, but which preserves, 
in its cultured state, the natural fragrance of its wilder air." — Campbell. 

The poem by which Parnell is chiefly known is " The Hermit," which 
has always been a favorite with every class of readers. It is a revolving 
panorama of beautiful pictures, each perfect in itself. The story, however, 
is not original, as it appeared as early as the fifteenth century in a collection 
of tales entitled the " Gesta Romanorum." But besides that the poem is so 
well known, it is too long to be inserted here. We therefore present the reader 
below with the analysis of the story in the " Gesta," as given by Warton in 
his History of English Poetry.^ The following piece, however, will give a 
good idea of Parnell's manner. 

- A devout hermit lived in a cave, near which a shepherd folded his flock. 
Many of the sheep being stolen, the shepherd was unjustly killed by his mas- 
ter, as being concerned in the theft. The hermit, seeing an innocent man put 
to death, began to suspect the existence of a Divine Providence, and resolved 
no longer to perplex himself with the useless severities of religion, but to mix 
in the world. In travelling from his retirement, he was met by an angel in 
the figure of a man ; who said, " I am an angel, and am sent by God to be 
your companion on the road." They entered a city, and begged for lodging 
at the house of a knight, who entertained them at a splendid supper. In the 
night, the angel rose from his bed, and strangled the knight's only child, who 
was asleep in the cradle. The hermit was astonished at this barbarous return 
for so much hospitality, but was afraid to make any remonstrance to his com- 
panion. Next morning they went to another city. Here they were liberally 
received in the house of an opulent citizen ; but in the night the angel rose, 
and stole a golden cup of inestimable value. The hermit now concluded, 
that his companion was a bad angel. In travelling forward the next morning, 
they passed over abridge, about the middle of which they met a poor man, of 
whom the angel asked the way to the next city. Having received the desired 
information, the angel pushed the poor man into the water, where he was 
immediately drowned. In the evening they arrived at the house of a rich 
man, and begging for a lodging, were ordered to sleep in a shed with the 
cattle. In the morning the angel gave the rich man the cup which he had 
stolen. The hermit, amazed that the cup which was stolen from their friend 
and benefactor should be given to one who refused them a lodging, began to 
be now convinced, that his companion was the devil ; and begged to go on 



1714-1727.] PARNELL. 325 



HYMN TO CONTENTMENT. 

Lovely, lasting peace of mind ! 
Sweet delight of human kind ! 
Heavenly born, and bred on high, 
To crown the favorites of the sky 
With more of happiness below, 
Than victors in a triumph know ! 
Whither, whither art thou fled, 
To lay thy meek contented head ; 
What happy region dost thou please 
To make the seat of calms and ease ? 

Ambition searches all its sphere 
Of pomp and state, to meet thee there. 
Increasing avarice would find 
Thy presence in its gold inshrin'd. 
The bold adventurer ploughs his way, 
Through rocks amidst the foaming sea, 
To gain thy love ; and then perceives 
Thou wert not in the rocks and waves. 
The silent heart, which grief assails. 
Treads soft and lonesome o'er the vales, 
Sees daisies open, rivers run, 
And seeks (as I have vainly done) 
Amusing thought ; but learns to know 
That Solitude's the nurse of woe. 
No real happiness is found 
In trailing purple o'er the ground: 
Or in a soul exalted high. 
To range the circuit of the sky, 
Converse with stars above, and know 
All Nature in its forms below ; 

alone. But the angel said, "Hear me and depart. When you lived in your 
hermitage, a shepherd was killed by his master. He was innocent of the sup- 
posed offence ; but had he not been then killed, he would have committed 
crimes in which he would have died impenitent. His master endeavors to 
atone for the murder, by dedicating the remainder of his days to alms and 
deeds of charity. I strangled the child of the knight. But know, that the 
father was so intent on heaping up riches for his child, as to neglect those 
acts of public munificence for which he was before so distinguished, and to 
which he has now returned. I stole the golden cup of the hospitable citizen. 
But know, that from a life of the strictest temperance, he became, in conse- 
quence of possessing this cup, a perpetual drunkard, and is now the most 
abstemious of men. I threw the poor man into the water. He was then 
honest and religious. But know, bad he walked one half of a mile further, 
he would have murdered a man in a state of mortal sin. I gave the golden 
cup to the rich man, who refused to take us within his roof He has there- 
fore received his reward in this world, and in the next will suffer the pains of 
hell for his inhospitality." The hermit fell prostrate at the angel's feet, and, 
requesting forgiveness, returned to his hermitage, fully convinced of the 
wisdom and justice of God's government. 



3^6 PARNELL. [GEORGE I. 

The rest it seeks, in seeking dies, 
And doubts at last for knowledge rise. 

Lovely, lasting peace, appear! 
This world itself, if thou art here, 
Is once again with Eden blest. 
And man contains it in his breast. 

'Twas thus, as under shade I stood, 
I sung my wishes to the wood. 
And, lost in thought, no more perceiv'd 
The branches whisper as they wav'd : 
It seem'd as all the quiet place 
Confess'd the presence of his grace. 
When thus she spoke — Go rule thy will, 
Bid thy wild passions all be still, 
Know God — and bring thy heart to know 
The joys which from rehgion flow : 
Then every grace shall prove its guest, 
And I'll be there to crown the rest. 

Oh ! by yonder mossy seat, 
In my hours of sweet retreat, 
Might I thus my soul employ, 
With sense of gratitude and joy : 
Rais"d as ancient prophets were, 
In heavenly vision, praise, and prayer; 
Pleasing all men, hurting none, 
Pleas'd and bless'd with God alone : 
Then while the gardens take my sight, 
With all the colors of delight ; 
While silver waters glide along, • 

To please my ear, and court my song: 
I'll lift my voice, and tune my string. 
And thee, great Source of Nature, sing. 

The sun that v/alks his airy way. 
To light the world, and give the day ; 
The inoon that shines with borrow'd light; 
The stars that gild the gloomy night; 
The seas that roll unnumber'd waves ; 
The wood that spreads its shady leaves ; 
The field whose ears conceal the grain, 
The yellow treasure of the plain ; 
All of these, and all I see, 
Should be sung, and sung by me : 
They speak their Maker as they can, 
But want and ask the tongue of man. 

Go search among your idle dreams, 
Your busy or your vain extremes ; 
And find a life of equal bliss, 
Or own the next begun in tliis. 



1714-1727.] PENN, 327 



WILLIAM PENN, J644— 1718. 

We come now to one of the purest and most exalted characters on the 
page of history ; — to one who laid the foundation of a great state in the 
strictest justice and equity; established the utmost freedom of conscience in 
religion; and demonstrated to the world that the most potent weapons to 
subdue the savage heart, are the peace principles of the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ. 

William Penn, the only son of Admiral Penn, was born in London, Oc- 
tober 14, 1644. His early education was very carefully attended to, and in 
1660 he entered Oxford University. His first bias towards the doctrines of 
the Society of Friends was produced by the preaching of Thomas Loe, the 
effect of which was, that Penn and some of his fellow-students withdrew 
from attendance on the pubhc worship of the Established Church, and held 
private prayer meetings. They were fined by the college, but this did not 
deter them. The principles which he adopted displeased his father very 
much, who repeatedly banished him from his house, but when it appeared 
that his son's opinions were unalterable, a reconcihation took place between 
them. In 1668 he began to preach, and also published his first work " Truth 
Exalted." Like many others of the early Friends, Penn was repeatedly 
thrown into prison ; and during his confinement in the Tower of London, he 
wrote his most popular work, " No Cross, no Crown," — an able exposition 
of the views of his society. In 1670 the Conventicle act was passed, and 
Penn was one of the first sufferers under it. He was tried for preaching to 
what was called " a riotous and seditious assembly," but the jury, in oppo- 
suion to the direction of the bench, had the firmness and moral courage to 
give a verdict of acquittal. 

We now come to the most important event of Penn's life, — the establish- 
ment of the colony of Pennsylvania. In 1681 a large tract of country on the 
west side of the Delaware was granted by Charles II. to Penn and his heirs, 
in consideration of a debt of £16,000 due from the Crown to Admiral Penn, 
for money advanced for the service of the navy. He set sail from England 
in August, 1682, in the ship Welcome, and arrived at Newcastle on the 
27th of October, where he was hailed with acclamations by the Swedes and 
Dutch already there. Thence the colony proceeded up the river, and in the 
latter end of the year located the town and borough of Philadelphia, " having 
a high and dry bank next to the water, with a shore ornamented with a fine 
view of pine trees growing upon it." Penn solemnly declared that he "came 
to the charge of the province for the Lord's sake." " I wanted," says he, 
" to aftbrd an asylum to the good and oppressed of every nation. I aimed 
to form a government which might be an example. I desired to show men 
as free and happy as they could be. I had also kind views towards the 
Indians." 

In about two years Penn was called to return back to England ; and from 
his intimacy with James 11., he was enabled to procure the release of his 
Quaker brethren, of whom fourteen hundred and eighty were in prison at 



328 PENN. [george I. 

the accession of that monarch. Indeed he was perpetually engaged in deeds 
of kindness for his people, at the same time endeavoring to clear the way for 
his return, and to bring out his family to abide for life. But various ob- 
stacles hindered him from year to year, so that it was not till 1699 that he 
and his family embarked for America. They arrived in November, and 
were received with universal joy, on account of his known intention to stay 
for life. But in this intention he was over-ruled, partly by the owners of 
land in Pennsylvania, dwelling in England, who felt that Penn could plead 
their interests with the Crown better than any other one ; and partly by the 
female members of the family, who, after the style to which they had been 
accustomed, could not well bear the rude and unformed state of things in 
the new colony. He says in a letter to James Logan, July, 1701. "lean- 
not prevail on my wife to stay, and still less with Tishe, (Letitia.) I know 
not what to do." Accordingly he returned the latter part of that year; and 
after experiencing various vicissitudes, and especially the most heartless in- 
gratitude from those whom he had most served, he died at his seat in Rus- 
combe, in Berkshire, July 30th, 1718. 

Penn was the author of numerous works, which were collected and pub- 
lished in 1726, in two volumes, folio. Besides the many able works in 
defence of the religious views of his sect, he wrote others which would be 
considered of more general interest. Of these are his " Reflections and 
Maxims relating to the conduct of Life." It is doubtful whether any other 
work of the size can be found, containing so much sound, practical wisdom. 
The following is the preface to the same. 



PREFACE TO HIS MAXIMS. 

Reader, this Enchiridion' I present thee with, is the fruit of 
solitude: a school few care to learn in, though none instructs 
us better. Some parts of it, are the result of serious reflection, 
others the flashings of lucid intervals, written for private satis- 
faction, and now published for an help to human conduct. 

The author blesseth God for his retirement, and kisses that 
gentle hand which led him into it : for though it should prove 
barren to the world, it can never do so to him. 

He has now had some time he could call his own, a property- 
he was never so much master of before : in which he has taken 
a view of himself and the world ; and observed wherein he hath 
hit and missed the mark; what might have been done, what 
mended, and what avoided in his human conduct: together with 
the omissions and excesses of others, as well societies and 
governments, as private families and persons. And he verily 

» A Greek word, compounded of en {&) "in" and cheir (;^g,'p) " the hand," 
and corresponds to our word " manual." See the same word in the selec- 
tions from Quarles, page 165. 



1714-1727.] PENN. 329 

thinks, were he to live over his life again, he could not only, 
with God's grace, serve him, but his neighbor and himself^ 
better than he hath done, and have seven years of his time to 
spare. And yet, perhaps, he hath not been the worst or the 
idlest man in the world; nor is he the oldest. And this is the 
rather said, that it might quicken thee, reader, to lose none of 
the time that is yet thine. 

There is nothing of which we are apt to be so lavish as of 
time, and about which we ought to be more solicitous ; since 
without it we can do nothing in this world. Time is what we 
want most, but what, alas ! we use worst ; and for which God 
will certainly most strictly reckon with us, when time shall be 
no more. 

It is of that moment to us in reference to both worlds, that I 
can hardly wish any man better, than that he would seriously 
consider what he does with his time ; how and to what end he 
employs it; and what returns he makes to God, his neighbor, 
and himself for it. Will he never have a ledger for this ; this, 
the greatest wisdom and work of life ? 

To come but once into the world, and trifle away our true 
enjoyment of it, and of ourselves in it, is lamentable indeed. 
This one reflection would yield a thinking person great instruc- 
tion. And, since nothing below man can so think, man in being 
thoughtless must needs fall below himself. And that, to be 
sure, such do, as are unconcerned in the use of their most pre- 
cious time. 

This is but too evident, if we will allow ourselves to consider, 
that there is hardly anything we take by the right end, or im- 
prove to its just advantage. 

We understand little of the works of God, either in nature or 
grace. We pursue false knowledge, and mistake education 
extremely. We are violent in our affections ; confused and im- 
methodical in our whole life ; making that a burthen which was 
given for a blessing; and so of little comfort to ourselves or 
others ; misapprehending the true notion of happiness, and so 
missing of the right use of life, and way of happy living. 

And until we are persuaded to stop, and step a little aside, 
out of the noisy crowd and incumbering hurry of the world ; 
and calmly take a prospect of things, it will be impossible we 
should be able to make a right judgment of ourselves, or know 
our own misery. But after we have made the just reckonings, 
which retirement will help us to, we shall begin to think the 
world in great measure mad, and that we have been in a sort of 
Bedlam all this while. 



330 PENN. [george I. 

Reader, whether young or old, think it not too soon or too 
late to turn over the leaves of thy past life ; and be sure to fold 
down where any passage of it may affect thee; and bestow thy 
remainder of time, to correct those faults in thy future conduct, 
be it in relation to this or the next life. What thou wouldst do, 
if what thou hast done were to do again, be sure to do as long 
as thou livest, upon the like occasions. 

Our resolutions seem to be vigorous, as often as we reflect 
upon our past errors ; but, alas ! they are apt to flag again upon 
fresh temptations to the same things. 

The author does not pretend to deliver thee an exact piece; 
his business not being ostentation, but charity. It is miscel- 
laneous in the matter of it, and by no means artificial in the 
composure. But it contains hints, that may serve thee for texts 
to preach to thyself upon, and which comprehend much of the 
course of human life : since whether thou art parent or child, 
prince or subject, master or servant, single or married, public 
or private, mean or honorable, rich or poor, prosperous or un- 
prosperous, in peace or controversy, in business or solitude ; 
whatever be thy inclination or aversion, practice or duty, thou 
wilt find something not unsuitably said for thy direction and 
advantage. Accept and improve what deserves thy notice ; the 
rest excuse, and place to account of good will to thee and the 
whole creation of God. 

penn's advice to his children.^ 

Next, betake yourselves to some honest, industrious course 
of life, and that not of sordid covetousness,but for example, and 
to avoid idleness. And if you change your condition and marry, 
choose with the knowledge and consent of your mother, if liv- 
ing, or of guardians, or those that have the charge of you. Mind 
neither beauty nor riches, but the fear of the Lord, and a sweet 
and amiable disposition, such as you can love above all this 
world, and that may make your habitations pleasant and desira- 
ble to you. 

And being married, be tender, affectionate, patient, and meek. 
Live in the fear of the Lord, and he will bless you and your off- 
spring. Be sure to live within compass ; borrow not, neither 
be beholden to any. Ruin not yourselves by kindness to others ; 
for that exceeds the due bounds of friendship, neither will a true 
friend expect it. Small matters I heed not. 

^ Read an admirable " Discourse on the Virtues and Public Services of 
William Penn," by Albert Barnes. 



1714-1727.] PENN. 331 

Let your industry and parsimony go no further than for a 
sufficiency for life, and to make a provision for your children, 
and that in moderation, if the Lord gives you any. I charge 
you help the poor and needy; let the Lord have a voluntary 
share of your income for the good of the poor, both in our 
society and others ; for we are all his creatures ; remembering 
that " he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord." 

Know well your incomings, and your outgoings may be 
better regulated. Love not money nor the world : use them 
only, and they will serve you; but if you love them you serve 
them, which will debase your spirits as well as oifend th^^^ 
Lord. ^^ 

Pity the distressed, and hold out a hand of help to them ; it 
may be your case, and as you mete to others, God will mete 
to you again. 

Be humble and gentle in your conversation ; of few words I 
charge you, but always pertinent when you speak, hearing out 
before you attempt to answer, and then speaking as if you would 
persuade, not impose. 

Affront none, neither revenge the affronts that are done to 
you ; but forgive, and you shall be forgiven of your heavenly 
Father. 

In making friends, consider well first; and when you are 
fixed, be true, not wavering by reports, nor deserting in afflic- 
tion, for that becomes not the good and virtuous. 

Watch against anger; neither speak nor act in it; for, like 
drunkenness, it makes a man a beast, and throws people into 
desperate inconveniences. 

Avoid flatterers, for they are thieves in disguise ; their praise 
is costly, designing to get by those they bespeak ; they are the 
worst of creatures ; they lie to flatter, and flatter to cheat ; and, 
which is worse, if you believe them, you cheat yourselves most 
dangerously. But the virtuous, though poor, love, cherish, and 
prefer. Remember David, who, asking the Lord, " Who shall 
abide in thy tabernacle ? who shall dwell upon thy holy hill?" 
answers, " He that walketh uprightly, worketh righteousness, 
and speaketh the truth in his heart ; in whose eyes the vile person 
is contemned, but honoreth them who fear the Lord." 

Next, my children, be temperate in all things : in your diet, 
for that is physic by prevention ; it keeps, nay, it makes people 
healthy, and their generation sound. This is exclusive of the 
spiritual advantage it brings. Be also plain in your apparel ; 
keep out that lust which reigns too much over some ; let your 
virtues be your ornaments, remembering life is more than food, 



333 PENN. [george I. 

and the body than raiment. Let your furniture be simple and 
cheap. Avoid pride, avarice, and luxury. Read ray " No 
Cross, no Crown." There is instruction. Make your con- 
versation with the most eminent for wisdom and piety, and 
shun all wicked men as you hope for the blessing of God and 
the comfort of your father's living and dying prayers. Be sure 
you speak no evil of any, no, not of the meanest; much less of 
your superiors, as magistrates, guardians, tutors, teachers, and 
elders in Christ. 

Be no busybodies ; meddle not with other folk's matters, but 
when in conscience and duty pressed ; for it procures trouble, 
and is ill manners, and very unseemly to wise men. 

In your families remember Abraham, Moses, and Joshua, 
their integrity to the Lord, and do as you have them for your 
examples. 

Let the fear and service of the living God be encouraged in 
your houses, and that plainness, sobriety, and moderation in all 
things, as becometh God's chosen people ; and as I advise you, 
my beloved children, do you counsel yours, if God should give 
you any. Yea, I counsel and command them as my posterity, 
that they love and serve the Lord God with an upright heart, 
that he may bless you and yours from generation to generation. 

And as for you, who are likely to be concerned in the govern- 
ment of Pennsylvania and my parts of East Jersey, especially 
the first, I do charge you before the Lord God and his holy 
angels, that you be lowly, diligent, and tender, fearing God, 
loving the people, and hating covetousness. Let justice have 
its impartial course, and the law free passage. Though to your 
loss, protect no man against it ; for you are not above the law, 
but the law above you. Live, therefore, the lives yourselves 
you would have the people live, and then you have right and 
boldness to punish the transgressor. Keep upon the square, 
for God sees you : therefore, do your duty, and be sure you see 
with your own eyes, and hear with your own ears. Entertain 
no lurchers, cherish no informers for gain or revenge, use no 
tricks, fly to no devices to support or cover injustice; but let 
your hearts be upright before the Lord, trusting in him above 
the contrivances of men, and none shall be able to hurt or sup- 
plant. 



I 



1714-1727.] ADDISON, 333 



JOSEPH ADDISON, 1672—1719. 

Joseph Addison, one of the brightest names in English literature, was 
born at Milston, in Wiltshire, of which place his father was rector, on the 
1st of May, 1672. After the usual course of study he entered the University 
of Oxford, at the age of fifteen. Here he devoted himself with great as- 
siduity to classical studies, the fruits of which were soon seen in a small 
volume of Latin poems, which attracted considerable attention. In his 
twenty-second year he addressed some verses to Mr. Dryden, which pro- 
cured him the notice and approbation of that poet, for whom he afterwards 
wrote a prefatory " Essay on the Georgics," which Dryden prefixed to his 
translation in 1697. Before this, however, he had become acquainted with 
that distinguished patron of letters, Lord Keeper Somers, who, in 1699, 
procured for him a pension of £300 a year, to enable him to travel in Italy. 
In this classic land he composed his epistle to Lord Hahfax, one of his best 
poetical productions, his " Dialogue on Medals," and the greater part of his 
" Cato." Soon after his return he published his travels in Italy, dedicated 
to his patron. Lord Somers, illustrative chiefly of the classical associations 
of that renowned land. 

The change of the administration in 1702 deprived Addison of his pen- 
sion ; and he had lived more than two years in retirement when he was 
requested by one of the ministry to write a poem in praise of the victory of 
Blenheim, gained by the Duke of Marlborough, in August, 1704. He did 
so, and before the year closed, appeared the " Campaign,"* which procured 
for him the office of under-secretary of state. In 1709 he went to Ireland 
as Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, and while here, on the 12th of April 
(O.S.), of that year, appeared the first number of " The Tatler." When the 
sixth number of this appeared, Addison knew that the author was his friend 
Sir Richard Steele,^ from a critical remark which he had privately made to 

^ Warton has not too severely called this poem "a Gazette in Rhyme." 
How infinitely superior for its fine moral tone, as well as for its pathos and 
poetry, is that touching ballad of Southey's, on the same subject; the last 
verse of which reads thus : — 

And everybody praised the Duke, 

Who this great fight did win : 
'' But what good came of it at last ?" 

Quoth little Peterkin. 
" Why that I cannot tell," said he, 
" But 'twas a famous victory." 

^ The critical remark which Addison made to Steele was upon the hero of 
the JEneid, which Steele gives as follows: — 

" Virgil's common epithet to ^neas is Pius or Pater. I have therefore 
considered what passage there is in any of his hero's actions where either of 
these appellations would have been most improper; — and this, I think, is his 
meeting with Dido in the cave, where Pius ^neas would have been absurd, 
and Pater ^neas a burlesque : the poet therefore wisely dropped them both 
for Dux Trojanus; which he has repeated twice in Juno's speech and his 



334 ADDISON. [george I. 

him alone, and he therefore immediately took a very active part in the con- 
duct of this periodical,^ 

The Tatler had scarcely terminated, when Addison formed the plan of 
that v/ork on which his fame chiefly rests — the "Spectator."^ The essays 
in it most valuable for humor, invention, and precept, are the product of 
his pen, and it soon became the most popular work England had produced. 
So great was its reputation that sometimes twenty thousand copies of a 
number were sold in one day. It travelled through every part of the king- 
dom, and v/as alike the recreation of the learned, the busy, and the idle. 
The "Spectator" was followed by the "Guardian,"^ which was com- 
menced by Steele, but to which Addison largely contributed. In the mean- 
time he published his tragedy of " Cato," which met with unbounded 
popularity, being represented on the stage thirty-five nights successively ; 
not, however, so much from its merits as a tragedy, as from the noble senti- 
ments of liberty which it breathes throughout, and which, in those times 
of great political excitement, each party, the Whig and the Tory, wished to 
appropriate to itself.* 

In 1716 Addison married the Countess of Warwick, who was, in every 
respect, vastly his inferior, except in the adventitious circumstance of 
family rank, which in England is of "wondrous potency." "In point of 

own narration : for he very well knew, a loose action might be consistent 
enough with the usual manners of a soldier, though it became neither the 
chastity of a pious man, nor the gravity of the father of a people." 

^ The Tatler may be considered as the father of English periodical litera- 
ture. It was published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, from the 
12th of April, 1709, to the 2d of January, 1711. Of the 271 papers, Steele 
wrote 188; Addison, 42; Steele and Addison jointly, 36; Swift and Addison, 
1; Hughes, 2; Swift, 1 ; Fuller, 1. 

2 It was commenced on the 1st of March, 1711, and continued every day, 
Sundays excepted, till the 6th of December, 1712. The plan is founded 
upon the fiction of a club that assembles every Tuesday and Thursday, to 
carry on the publication. Of the 635 numbers, Addison wrote 274; Steele, 
240; Budgell, 37; Hughes, 11; Grove, 4; Pope, Parnell, Pearce, Martyn, 
Byrom, 2 each ; Swift, Brown, Francham, Dunlop, Hardwicke, Fleetwood, 1 
each; and 63 were anonymous. Addison's papers are designated by the let- 
ters of the word Clio. 

^ The first number of the Guardian was published on the 12th of March, 
and the last on the 1st of October, 1713. Of the 176 numbers Steele wrote 
82; Addison, 53; Berkeley, 14; Pope, 8; Tickell, 7; Budgell, Hughes, and 
Parnell, 2 each ; Gay, Young, Philips, Wotton, Birch, Bartlett, 1 each. 

* " The tragedy of Cato," says Dr. Warton, "is a glaring instance of the 
force of party. So sententious and declamatory a drama would never have 
met with such rapid success, if every line and sentiment had not been par- 
ticularly tortured and applied to recent events. It is a fine dialogue on 
liberty, and the love of one's country, but considered as a dramatic perform- 
ance it wants action a.nd pathos, the two hinges on which a just tragedy ought 
to turn, and without which it cannot subsist." Dr. Johnson has censured it 
as a " dialogue too declamatory, of unaffecting elegance, and chill philoso- 
phy," — the very terms most applicable to his own tragedy " Irene." 

" wad some pow'r the giftie gie us 
To see oursels as others see us." — Burns. 



1714-1727.] ADDISON. 335 

intellect," says Dr. Drake, "there could be no competition; and despicable 
must have been the ignorance of that woman who could for a moment sup- 
pose that the mere casualty of splendid birth entitled her to treat with con- 
tempt, and to arrogate a superiority over a man of exquisite genius and 
unsullied virtue." That she was the means of embittering his life, and 
shortening his days, there is no doubt. He had long been subject to an 
asthmatic affection, and it soon became evident that the hour of his disso- 
lution could not be far distant. " The death-bed of Addison was the triumph 
of rehgion and virtue. Reposing on the merits of his Redeemer, and con- 
scious of a life well spent in the service of his fellow-creatures, he waited 
with tranquillity and resignation the moment of departure. The dying ac- 
cents of the virtuous man have frequently, when other means have failed, 
produced the happiest effect; and Addison, anxious that a scene so awful 
might make its due impression, demanded the attendance of his son-in-law, 
Lord Warwick. This young nobleman was amiable, but dissipated; and 
Addison had often, though in vain, endeavored to correct his principles, and 
to curb the impetuosity of his passions. He came, says Dr. Young, who 
first related the affecting circumstance ; but life was now glimmering in the 
socket, and the dying friend was silent. After a decent and proper pause 
the youth said, 'Dear sir, you sent for me: I believe, I hope you have some 
commands; I shall hold them most sacred.' May distant ages not only 
hear but feel the reply. Forcibly grasping the youth's hand, he softly said, 
' See in what feace a Christian can die;" and soon after expired, on the 
17th of June, 1719."2 

Of the merits of Addison as a writer, there never has been but one opinion 
among the critics. Mr. Melmoth says of him, " In a word, one may justly 
apply to him what Plato, in his allegorical language, says of Aristophanes, 
that the Graces, having searched all the world for a temple wherein they 
might forever dwell, settled at last in the breast of Mr. Addison. "^ 

Dr. Young is no less emphatic in his praise. "Addison wrote little in 
verse, much in sweet, elegant, Virgilian prose ; so let me call it, since 
Longinus calls Herodotus most Homeric; and Thucydides is said to have 
formed his style on Pindar. Addison's compositions are built with the finest 
materials, in the taste of the ancients. I never read him, but I am struck 
with such a disheartening idea of perfection, that I drop my pen. And, in- 
deed, far superior writers should forget his compositions, if they would be 
greatly pleased with their own."4 And Dr. Johnson remarks: "Whoever 

' Tickell told Dr. Young, that in the following couplet of his elegy on the 
death of Addison, he alluded to this interview with the Earl of Warwick: 

" He taught us how to live, and oh, too high 
The price of knowledge, taught us how to die." 

^ Read an admirable sketch of Addison's Life in Drake's Essays, vol. i. 
Also an article in the Edinburgh Review, July, 1843, and in Macaulay's Mis- 
cellanies, vol. v. p. 82. 

3 Fitzosborne's Letters, Letter XXIX. 

' Observations on Original Composition. 



336 ADDISON. [george I. 

wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but 
not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.'" 

As a writer, Addison may be considered as excelling in four departments, 
namely, in Criticism, in Humor, in Fable and Allegory, and in Instructive 
Morality, As a critic, he was the first to call the attention of the public to 
the rich mine of wealth to be found in Milton.2 His Essay on the Pleasures 
of the Imagination^ are well known as being the foundation of Akenside's 
fine poem on the same subject. Numerous single papers, also, on different 
subjects of criticism, are scattered throughout the Spectator ; such as, those 
on the English Language,^ on Ancient and Modern Literature, ° on Pope's 
Essay on Criticism, ^ on Old English Ballads,'' &c. The concluding part of 
a paper on Irregular Genius,8 we must here insert, as being an encomium 
on Shakspeare, " which, for its singularly happy imagery may set competi- 
tion at defiance." 

Our inimitable Shakspeare is a stumbling-block to the whole 
tribe of rigid critics. Who would not rather read one of his 
plays, where there is not a single rule of the stage observed, 
than any production of a modern critic, where there is not one 
of them violated ! Shakspeare was indeed born with all the 
seeds of poetry, and may be compared to the stone in Pyrrhus's 
ring, which, as Pliny tells us, had the figure of Apollo and the 
nine Muses in the veins of it, produced by the spontaneous 
hand of nature, without any help from art. 

In refined and delicate humor, Addison has no superior, if he has any 
equal in English prose literature.^ The following may be taken as speci- 
mens: 



LEARNING FENCING.'" 

I have upon my chamber-walls drawn at full length the figures 
of all sorts of men, from eight feet to three feet two inches. 
Within this height, I take it, that all the fighting men of Great 
Britain are comprehended. But, as I push, I make allowances 

^ Read, Johnson's Life of Addison, in his " Lives of the Poets;" also, Dr. 
Blair's criticisms, in the 19th Lecture ; and Knox's Essays, Nos. 28 and 106. 

2 Spectators, Nos. 262, 267, 273 and so on for sixteen more numbers, every 
Saturday. 

3 Spectators, Nos. 411—421. * No. 135. = Nq. 249. 
6 No. 253. ^ No. 85. ^ No. 592. 

» "His humor," says Dr. Johnson, "is so happily diffused as to give the 
grace of novelty to domestic scenes and daily occurrences. He never out- 
steps the mcdesty of nature, nor raises merriment or wonder by the violation 
of truth. His figures neither divert by distortion, nor amuse by aggravation. 
He copies life with so much fidelity, that he can hardly be said to invent ; yet 
his exhibitions have an air so much original, that it is difficult to suppose them 
not merely the product of the imagination." — Lives of the Poets, 

'^ From No. 93 of the Tatler. 



1714-1727.] ADDISON. 337 

for my being of a lank and spare body? and have chalked out 
in every figure my own dimensions ; for I scorn to rob any man 
of his life by taking advantage of his breadth : therefore, I press 
purely in a line down from his nose, and take no more of him 
to assault than he has of me : for, to speak impartially, if a lean 
fellow wounds a fat one in any part of the right or left, whether 
it be in carte or in tierce, beyond the dimensions of the said 
lean fellow's own breadth, I take it to be murder, and such a 
murder as is below a gentleman to commit. As I am spare, I 
am also very tall, and behave myself with relation to that ad- 
vantage with the same punctilio; and I am ready to stoop or 
stand, according to the stature of my adversary. I must confess, 
I have had great success this morning, and have hit every figure 
round the room in a mortal part, without receiving the least hurt, 
except a little scratch by falling on my face, in pushing at one 
at the lower end of my chamber; but I recovered so quick, and 
jumped so nimbly into my guard, that, if he had been alive, he 
could not have hurt me. It is confessed I have written against 
duels with some warmth; but in all my discourses I have not 
ever said that I knew how a gentleman could avoid a duel if he 
were provoked to it ; and since that custom is now become a 
law, I know nothing but the legislative power, with new ani- 
madversions upon it, can put us in a capacity of denying chal- 
lenges, though we were afterwards hanged for it. But no more 
of this at present. As things stand, I shall put up no more 
affronts ; and I shall be so far from taking ill words, that I will 
not take ill looks. I, therefore, warn all hot young fellows not 
to look hereafter more terrible than their neighbors : for, if they 
stare at me with their hats cocked higher than other people, I 
will not bear it. Nay, I give warning to all people in general 
to look kindly at me ; for I will bear no frowns, even from 
ladies ; and if any woman pretends to look scornfully at me, I 
shall demand satisfaction of the next of kin of the masculine 
gender. 

ON THE USE OF THE FAN.' 

I do not know whether to call the following letter a satire 
upon coquettes, or a representation of their several fantastical 
accomplishments, or what odier tide to give it ; but, as it is, I 
shall communicate it to the public. It will sufficiently explain 
its own intentions, so that I shall give it my reader at length, 
without either preface or postscript. 



338 ADDISON. [georgb I. 

Mr. Spectator: 

Women are armed with fans as men with swords, and some- 
times do more execution with them. To the end, therefore, 
that ladies may he entire mistresses of the weapon which they 
bear, I have erected an academy for the training up of young 
women in the exercise of the fan, according to the most f^ishion- 
able airs and motions that are now practised at court. The 
ladies who carry fans under me are drawn up twice a-day in 
my great hall, where they are instructed in the use of their 
arms, and exercised by the following words of command : — 
Handle your fans, Unfurl your fans. Discharge your fans, 
Ground your fans. Recover your fans. Flutter your fans. By 
the right observation of these few plain words of command, a 
woman of a tolerable genius, who will apply herself diligently 
to her exercise for the space of but one half-year, shall be able 
to give her fan all the graces that can possibly enter into that 
little modish machine. 

But to the end that my readers may form to themselves a 
right notion of this exercise, 1 beg leave to explain it to them in 
all its parts. When my female regiment is drawn up in array, 
with every one her weapon in her hand, upon my giving the 
word to Handle their fans, each of them shakes her fan at me 
with a smile, then gives her right-hand woman a tap upon the 
shoulder, then presses her lips with the extremity of her fan, 
then lets her arms fall in easy motion, and stands in readiness 
to receive the next word of command. All this is done with a 
close fan, and is generally learned in the first week. 

The next motion is that of unfurling the fan, in which are 
comprehended several little flirts and vibrations, as also gradual 
and deliberate openings, with many voluntary fallings asunder 
in the fan itself, that are seldom learned under a month's prac- 
tice. This part of the exercise pleases the spectators more than 
any other, as it discovers on a sudden an infinite number of 
cupids, garlands, altars, birds, beasts, rainbows, and the like 
agreeable figures, that display themselves to view, whilst every 
one in the regiment holds a picture in her hand. 

Upon my giving the word to Discharge their fans, they give 
one general crack that may be heard at a considerable distance 
when the wind sits fair. This is one of the most difficult parts 
of the exercise, but I have several ladies with me, who at their 
first entrance could not give a pop loud enough to be heard at 
the farther end of a room, who can now discharge a fan in such 
a manner, that it shall make a report like a pocket-pistol. I 
have likewise taken care (in order to hinder young women from 



1714-1727.] ADDISON. 339 

letting off their fans in wrong places, or on unsuitable occasions) 
to show upon what subject the crack of a fan may come in 
properly : I have likewise invented a fan, with which a girl of 
sixteen, by the help of a little wind which is inclosed about one 
of the largest sticks, can make as loud a crack as a woman of 
fifty with an ordinary fan. 

When the fans are thus discharged, the word of command, 
in course, is to ground their fans. This teaches a lady to quit 
her fan gracefully when she throws it aside in order to take up 
a pack of cards, adjust a curl of hair, replace a falling pin, or 
apply herself to any other matter of importance. This part of 
the exercise, as it only consists in tossing a fan with an air 
upon a long table (which stands by for that purpose), may be 
learned in two days' time as well as in a twelvemonth. 

When my female regiment is thus disarmed, I generally let 
them walk about the room for some time ; when, on a sudden, 
(like ladies that look upon their watches after a long visit) they 
all of them hasten to their arms, catch them up in a hurry, and 
place themselves in their proper stations upon my calling out. 
Recover your fans. This part of the exercise is not difficult, 
provided a woman applies her thoughts to it. 

The fluttering of the fan is the last, and indeed the master- 
piece of the whole exercise ; but if a lady does not mis-spend 
her time, she may make herself mistress of it in three months. 
I generally lay aside the dog-days and the hot time of the sum- 
mer for the teaching this part of the exercise ; for as soon as 
ever I pronounce. Flutter your fans, the place is filled with so 
many zephyrs and gentle breezes as are very refreshing in that 
season of the year, though they might be dangerous to ladies of 
a tender constitution in any other. 

There is an infinite variety of motions to be made use of in 
the flutter of a fan. There is the angry flutter, the modest flut- 
ter, the timorous flutter, the confused flutter, the merry flutter, 
and the amorous flutter. Not to be tedious, there is scarce any 
emotion in the mind which does not produce a suitable agitation 
in the fan ; insomuch, that if I only see the fan of a disciplined 
lady, I know very well whether she laughs, frowns, or blushes. 
I have seen a fan so very angry, that it would have been dan- 
gerous for the absent lover who provoked it to have come within 
the wind of it ; and at other times so very languishing, that I 
have been glad for the lady's sake the lover was at a sufficient 
distance from it. I need not add, that a fan is either a prude 
or coquette, according to the nature of the person who bears it. 
To conclude my letter, I must acquaint you that I have from 



340 ADDISON. [gEORGE I. 

my own observations compiled a little treatise for the use of mv 
scholars, entitled, The Passions of the Fan ; which I will com- 
municate to you if you think it may be of use to the public. I 
shall have a general review on Thursday next; to which you 
shall be very welcome if you will honor it with your presence. 

I am, &;c. 

P. S. I teach young gentlemen the whole art of gallanting a 
fan. 

N. B. I have several little plain fans made for this use, to 
avoid expense. 



THE LOVER S LEAP.' 

I shall in this paper discharge myself of the promise I have 
made to the public, by obliging them with a translation of the 
litde Greek manuscript, which is said to have been a piece of 
those records that were preserved in the temple of Apollo, upon 
the promontory of Leucate. It is a short history of the Lover's 
Leap, and is inscribed, An account of persons, male and female, 
M'ho offered up their vows in the temple of the Pythian Apollo 
in the forty-sixth Olympiad, and leaped from the promontory 
of Leucate into the Ionian Sea, in order to cure themselves of 
the passion of love. 

This account is very dry in many parts, as only mentioning 
the name of the lover who leaped, the person he leaped for, 
and relating, in short, that he was either cured, or killed, or 
maimed by the fall. It, indeed, gives the names of so many 
who died by it, that it would have looked Hke a bill of mortality, 
had I translated it at full length ; I have, therefore, made an 
abridgment of it, and only extracted such particular passages as 
have something extraordinary, either in the case or in the cure, 
or in the fate of the person who is mentioned in it. After this 
short preface take the account as follows : 

Battus, the son of Menalcas the Sicilian, leaped for Bombyca 
the musician : got rid of his passion with the loss of his right 
leg and arm, which were broken in the fall. 

Melissa, in love with Daphnis, very much bruised, but es- 
caped with life. 

Cynisca, the wife of ^schines, being in love with Lycus ; 
and ^schines her husband being in love with Eurilla (which 
had made this married couple very uneasy to one another for 
several years) ; both the husband and the wife took the leap by 

'■ Spectator, No. 233. 



I 



1714-1727.] ADDISON. 841 

consent; they both of them escaped, and have lived very hap- 
pily together ever since. 

Larissa, a virgin of Thessaly, deserted by Plexippus, after a 
courtship of three years ; she stood upon the brow of the pro- 
montory for some time, and after having thrown down a ring, 
a bracelet, and a little picture, with other presents which she 
had received from Plexippus, she threw herself into the sea, 
and was taken up alive. 

N.B. Larissa, before she leaped, made an offering of a silver 
Cupid in the temple of Apollo. 

Aridaeus, a beautiful youth of Epirus, in love with Praxinoe, 
the wife of Thespis ; escaped without damage, saving only that 
two of his fore-teeth were struck out and his nose a little 
flatted. 

Cleora, a widow of Ephesus, being inconsolable for the death 
of her husband, was resolved to take this leap in order to get 
rid of her passion for his memory; but being arrived at the pro- 
montory, she there met with Dimmachus the Milesian, and after 
a short conversation with him, laid aside the thoughts of her 
leap, and married him in the temple of Apollo. 

N.B. Her widow's weeds are still seen hanging up in the 
western corner of the temple. 

Olphis, the fisherman, having received a box on the ear from 
Thestylis the day before, and being determined to have no more 
to do with her, leaped, and escaped with life. 

Atalanta, an old maid, whose cruelty had several years before 
driven two or three despairing lovers to this leap; being now in 
the fifty-fifth year of her age, and in love with an officer of 
Sparta, broke her neck in the fall. 

Tettyx, the dancing-master, in love with Olympia, an Athe- 
nian matron, threw himself from the rock with great agility, 
but was crippled in the fall. 

Diagoras, the usurer, in love with his cook maid; he peeped 
several times over the precipice, but his heart misgiving him, he 
went back, and married her that evening. 

Eunica, a maid of Paphos, aged nineteen, in love with Eury- 
bates. Hurt in the fall, but recovered. 

N. B. This was the second time of her leaping. 

Hesperus, a young man of Tarentum, in love with his mas- 
ter's dangliter. Drowned, the boats not coming in soon enough 
TO his relief. 

Sappho the Lesbian, in love with Phaon, arrived at the temple 
of Apollo habited like a bride, in garments as v/hite as snow. 
She wore a garland of myrtle on her head, and carried in her 



342 ADDISON. [george I. 

hand the little musical instrument of her own invention. After 
having sung an hymn to Apollo, she hung up her garland on 
one side of his altar, and her harp on the other. She then 
tucked up her vestments like a Spartan virgin, and amidst thou- 
sands of spectators, who were anxious for her safety, and offered 
up vows for her deliverance, marched directly forwards to the 
utmost summit of the promontory, where, after having repeated 
a stanza of her own verses,which we could not hear, she threw 
herself off the rock with such an intrepidity as was never before 
observed in any who had attempted that dangerous leap. Many 
who were present related, that they saw her fall into the sea, 
from whence she never rose again ; though there were others 
who affirmed that she never came to the bottom of her leap, but 
that she was changed into a swan as she fell, and that they saw 
her hovering in the air under that shape. But whether or no the 
whiteness and fluttering of her garments might not deceive those 
who looked upon her, or whether she might not really be meta- 
morphosed into that musical and melancholy bird, is still a doubt 
among the Lesbians. 

Alcaeus, the famous lyric poet, who had for some time been 
passionately in love with Sappho, arrived at the promontory of 
Leucate that very evening, in order to take the leap upon her 
account; but hearing that Sappho had been there before him, 
and that her body could be no where found, he very generously 
lamented her fall, and is said to have written his hundred and 
twenty-fifth ode upon that occasion. 

Leaped in this Olympiad. 

Males 124 

Females 126 

250 
Cured. 

Males 51 

Females 69 

120 

DISSECTION OF A BEAu's HEAD.' 

I was yesterday engaged in an assembly of virtuosos, where 
one of them produced many curious observations which he had 

'■ Spectator, No. 275. 



1714-1727.] ADDISON. 343 

lately made in the anatomy of an human body. Another of 
the company communicated to us several wonderful discoveries, 
which he had also made on the same subject, by the help of 
very fine glasses. This gave birth to a great variety of uncom- 
mon remarks, and furnished discourse for the remaining part 
of the day. 

The different opinions which were started on this occasion 
presented to my imagination so many new ideas, that by mix- 
ing with those which were already there, they employed my 
fancy all the last night, and composed a very wild extravagant 
dream. 

I was invited, methought, to the dissection of a beau's head 
and a coquette's heart, which were both of them laid on a 
table before us. An imaginary operator opened the first with 
a great deal of nicety, which, upon a cursory and superficial 
view, appeared like the head of another man; but upon apply- 
ing our glasses to it, we made a very odd discovery, namely, 
that what we looked upon as brains were not such in reality, 
but an heap of strange materials wound up in that shape and 
texture, and packed together with wonderful art in the several 
cavities of the skull. For, as Homer tells us, that the blood 
of the gods is not real blood, but only something like it ; so we 
found that the brain of a beau is not a real brain, but only 
something like it. 

The pineal gland, which many of our modern philosophers 
suppose to be the seat of the soul, smelt very strong of essence 
and orange-flower water, and was encompassed with a kind of 
horny substance, cut into a thousand little faces or mirrors, 
which were imperceptible to the naked eye, insomuch that the 
soul, if there had been any here, must have been always taken 
up in contemplating her own beauties. 

We observed a large antrum or cavity in the sinciput, that 
was filled with ribbons, lace, and embroidery, wrought together 
in a most curious piece of net-work, the parts of which were 
likewise imperceptible to the naked eye. Another of these 
antrums or cavities was stuffed with invisible billet-doux, love- 
letters, pricked dances, and other trumpery of the same nature. 
In another we found a kind of powder, which set the whole 
company a sneezing, and by the scent discovered itself to be 
right Spanish. The several other cells were stored with com- 
modities of the same kind, of which it would be tedious to 
give the reader an exact inventory. 

There was a large cavity on each side the head, which I 
must not omit. That on the right side was filled with fictions, 



344 ADDisox. [george I. 

flatteries, and falsehoods, vows, promises, and protestations: 
that on the left with oaths and imprecations. There issued out 
a duct from each of these cells, which ran into the root of the 
tongue, where both joined together, and passed forward in one 
common duct to the tip of it. We discovered several little 
roads or canals running from the ear into the brain, and took 
particular care to trace them out through their several passages. 
One of them extended itself to a bundle of sonnets and little 
musical instruments. Others ended in several bladders which 
were filled either with wind or froth. But the large canal 
entered into a great cavity of the skull, from whence there 
went another canal into the tongue. This great cavity was 
filled with a kind of spungy substance, which the French 
anatomists call galimatias, and the English, nonsense. 

The skins of the forehead were extremely tough and thick, 
and, what very much surprised us, had not in them any single 
blood-vessel that we were able to discover, either with or with- 
out our glasses; from whence we concluded that the party 
when alive must have been entirely deprived of the faculty of 
blushing. 

The OS cribriforme was exceedingly stufl^ed, and in some 
places damaged with snuff. We could not but take notice in 
particular of that small muscle which is not often discovered in 
dissection, and draws the nose upwards, when it expresses the 
contempt which the owner of it has, upon seeing anything 
he does not like, or hearing anything he does not understand. 
I need not tell my learned reader this is that muscle which 
performs the motion so often mentioned by the Latin poets 
Avhen they talk of a man's cocking his nose, or playing the 
rhinoceros. 

We did not find anything very remarkable in the eye, saving 
only, that the musculi ainatorii, or, as we may translate it into 
English, the ogling 7nuscles, were very much worn and de- 
cayed with use; whereas, on the contrary, the elevator, or the 
muscle which turns the eye towards heaven, did not appear to 
have been used at all. 

I have only mentioned in this dissection such new discoveries 
as we were able to make, and have not taken any notice of 
those parts which seem to be met with in common heads. As 
for the skull, the face, and indeed the whole outward shape and 
figure of the head, we could not discover any difference from 
what we observe in the heads of other men. We were in- 
formed, that the person to whom this head belonged, had passed 
for a man above five and thirty years ; during which time he 



1714-1727.] ADDISON. 345 

eat and drank like other people, dressed well, talked loud, 
laughed frequently, and on particular occasions had acquitted 
himself tolerably at a ball or an assembly ; to which one of 
the company added, that a certain knot of ladies took him for 
a wit. He was cut off in the flower of his age by the blow 
of a paring-shovel, having been surprised by an eminent citizen, 
as he was tendering some civilities to his wife. 

When we had thoroughly examined this head, with all its 
apartments, and its several kinds of furniture, we put up the 
brain, such as it was, into its proper place, and laid it aside 
under a broad piece of scarlet cloth, in order to be prepared, 
and kept in a great repository of dissections ; our operator tell- 
ing us that the preparation would not be so difficult as that of 
another brain, for that he had observed several of the little 
pipes and tubes which ran through the brain were already 
filled with a kind of mercurial substance, which he looked 
upon to be true quicksilver. 

He applied himself in the next place to the coquette's heart, 
which he likewise laid open with great dexterity. There oc- 
curred to us many particularities in this dissection ; but being 
unwilling to burthen my reader's memory too much, I shall 
reserve this subject for the speculation of another day. 

DISSECTION OF A COQUETTe's HEART. ^ 

Having already given an account of the dissection of a beau's 
head, with the several discoveries made on that occasion; I 
shall here, according to my promise, enter upon the dissection 
of a coquette's heart, and communicate to the public such par- 
ticulars as we observed in that curious piece of anatomy. 

I should perhaps have waved this undertaking, had I not 
been put in mind of my promise by several of my unknown 
correspondents, who are very importunate with me to make an 
example of the coquette, as I have already done of the beau. 
It is therefore in compliance with the request of friends, that I 
have looked over the minutes of my former dream, in order to 
give the public an exact relation of it, which I shall enter upon 
without farther preface. 

Our operator, before he engaged in this visionary dissection, 
told us, that there was nothing in his art more difficult than to 
lay open the heart of a coquette, by reason of the many laby- 

' Spectator, No. 287. 



346 ADDISON. [george I. 

rinths and recesses which are to be found in it, and which do 
not appear in the heart of any other animal. 

He desired us first of all to observe the pericardium, or out- 
ward case of the heart, which we did very attentively; and by 
the help of our glasses discerned in it millions of little scars, 
which seemed to have been occasioned by the points of innu- 
merable darts and arrows, that from time to time had glanced 
upon the outward coat; though we could not discover the 
smallest orifice, by which any of them had entered and pierced 
the inward substance. 

Every smatterer in anatomy knows that this pericardium, or 
case of the heart contains in it a thin reddish liquor, supposed 
to be bred from the vapors which exhale out of the heart, and, 
being stopt here, are condensed into this watery substance. 
Upon examining this liquor, we found that it had in it all the 
qualities of that spirit which is made use of in the thermometer 
to show the change of weather. 

Nor must I here omit an experiment one of the company 
assured us he himself had made with this liquor, which he 
found in great quantity about the heart of a coquette whom he 
had formerly dissected. He affirmed to us that he had actually 
inclosed it in a small tube made after the manner of a weather- 
glass ; but that instead of acquainting him with the variations 
of the atmosphere, it showed him the qualities of those persons 
who entered the room where it stood. He affirmed, also, that 
it rose at the approach of a plume of feathers, an embroidered 
coat, or a pair of fringed gloves; and that it fell as soon as an 
ill-shaped periwig, a clumsy pair of shoes, or an unfashionable 
coat came into his house. Nay, he proceeded so far as to 
assure us, that upon his laughing aloud when he stood by it, 
the liquor mounted very sensibly, and immediately sunk again 
upon his looking serious. In short he told us, that he knew 
very well, by this invention, whenever he had a man of sense 
or a coxcomb in his room. 

Having cleared away the pericardium, or the case, and liquor 
above mentioned, we came to the heart itself. The outward 
surface of it was extremely slippery, and the mucro, or point, 
so very cold withal, that upon endeavoring to take hold of it, it 
glided through the fingers like a smooth piece of ice. 

The fibres were turned and twisted in a more intricate and 
perplexed manner than they are usually found in other hearts ; 
insomuch that the whole heart was wound up together in a 
Gordian knot, and must have had very irregular and unequal 
motions, while it was employed in its vital function. 



1714-1727.] ADDISON. 347 

One thing we thought very observable, namely, that upon 
examining all the vessels which came into it, or issued out of 
it, we could not discover any communication that it had with 
the tongue. 

We could not but take notice, likewise, that several of those 
little nerves in the heart which are affected by the sentiments 
of love, hatred, and other passions, did not descend to this 
before us from the brain, but from the muscles which lie about 
the eye. 

Upon weighing the heart in my hand, I found it to be ex- 
tremely light, and consequently very hollow, which I did not 
wonder at, when, upon looking into the inside of it, I saw mul- 
titudes of cells and cavities running one within another, as our 
historians describe the apartments of Rosamond's bower. Seve- 
ral of these little hollows were stuffed with innumerable sorts 
of trifles, which I shall forbear giving any particular account of, 
and shall therefore only take notice of what lay first and up- 
permost, which upon our unfolding it, and applying our micro- 
scopes to it, appeared to be a flame-colored hood. 

We are informed that the lady of this heart, when living, 
received the addresses of several who made love to her, and 
did not only give each of them encouragement, but made every 
one she conversed with believe that she regarded him with an 
eye of kindness ; for which reason we expected to have seen, 
the impressions of multitudes of faces among the several plaits 
and foldings of the heart ; but to our great surprise not a single 
print of this nature discovered itself until we came into the 
very core and centre of it. We there observed a little figure, 
which, upon applying our glasses to it, appeared dressed in a 
very fantastic manner. The more I looked upon it, the more 
I thought I had seen the face before, but could not possibly 
recollect either the place or time; when at length, one of the 
company, who had examined this figure more nicely than the 
rest, showed us plainly, by the make of its face, and the seve- 
ral turns of its features, that the little idol which was thus 
lodged in the very middle of the heart was the deceased beau, 
whose head I gave some account of in my last Tuesday's 
paper. 

As soon as we had finished our dissection, we resolved to 
make an experiment of the heart, not being able to determine 
among ourselves the nature of its substance, which differed in 
so many particulars from that of the heart in other females. 
Accordingly we laid it in a pan of burning coals, when we ob- 
served in it a certain salamandrine quality, that made it capable 



348 ADDISON. [george I. 

of living in the midst of fire and flame, without being coh- 
siimed, or so much as singed. 

As we were admiring this strange phenomenon, and standing 
round the heart in a circle, it gave a most prodigious sigh, or 
rather crack, and dispersed all at once in smoke and vapor. 
This imaginary noise, which methought was louder than the 
burst-of a cannon, produced such a violent shake in my brain, 
that it dissipated the fumes of sleep, and left me in an instant 
broad awake. 

As a specimen of the allegorical painting of Addison, take the following. 



When I was at Grand Cairo, I picked up several oriental 
manuscripts, which I have still by me. — Among others I met 
with one entided. The Visions of Mirza, which I have read 
over with great pleasure. I intend to give it to the public 
when I have no other entertainment for them ; and shall begin 
with the first vision, which I have translated word for word, as 
follows : 

" On the fifth day of the moon, which, according to the cus- 
tom of my forefathers, I always keep holy, after having washed 
myself, and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the 
high hills of Bagdad, in order to pass the rest of the day in me- 
ditation and prayer. As I was here airing myself on the tops 
of the mountains, I fell into a profound contemplation on the 
vanity of human life; and passing from one thought to another, 
' Surely,' said I, ' man is but a shadow, and life a dream.' 
Whilst I was thus musing, I cast my eyes towards the summit 
of a rock that was not far from me, where I discovered one in 
the habit of a shepherd, with a little musical instrument in his 
hand. As I looked upon him he applied it to his lips, and 
began to play upon it. — The sound of it was exceeding sweet, 
and wrought into a variety of tunes that were inexpressibly 
melodious, and altogether different from any thing I had ever 
heard. They put me in mind of those heavenly airs that are 
played to the departed souls of good men upon their first arrival 
in JParadise, to wear out the impressions of the last agonies, and 
qualify them for the pleasures of that happy place. My heart 
melted away in secret raptures. 

" I had been often told that the rock before me was the haunt 
of a genius; and that several had been entertained with music 

* Spectator, No. 159. 



1714-1727.] ADDISON. 349 

who had passed by it, but never heard that the musician had 
before made himself visible. When he had raised my thoughts 
by those transporting airs which he played, to taste the plea- 
sures of his conversation, as I looked upon him like one aston- 
ished, he beckoned to me, and by the waving of his hand 
directed me to approach the place where he sat. I drew near 
with that reverence which is due to a superior nature ; and as 
my heart was entirely subdued by the captivating strains I had 
heard, I fell down at his feet and wept. The genius smiled 
upon me with a look of compassion and affability, that familiar- 
ized him to my imagination, and at once dispelled all the fears 
and apprehensions with which I approached him. He lifted 
me from the ground, and taking me by the hand, ' Mirza,' said 
he, ' I have heard thee in thy soliloquies; follow me.' 

" He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the rock, and 
placing me on the top of it — ' Cast thy eyes eastward,' said he, 
' and tell me what thou seest.' ' I see,' said I, ' a huge valley, 
and a prodigious tide of water rolling through it.' ' The valley 
that thou seest,' said he, ' is the Vale of Misery, and the tide 
of water that thou seest is part of the great tide of eternity.' 
' What is the reason,' said I, ' that the tide I see, rises out of a 
thick mist at one end, and again loses itself in a thick mist at 
the other?' 'What thou seest,' said he, ' is that portion of 
eternity which is called time, measured out by the sun, and 
reaching from the beginning of the world to its consummation. 
Examine now,' said he, ' this sea that is bounded with darkness 
at both ends, and tell me what thou discoverest in it.' ' 1 see 
a bridge,' said I, ' standing in the midst of the tide.' ' The 
bridge thou seest,' said he, ' is human life ; consider it attent- 
ively.' Upon a more leisurely survey of it, I found that it 
consisted of threescore and ten entire arches, with several bro- 
ken arches, which, added to those that were entire, made up 
the number about an hundred. As I was counting the arches, 
the genius told me that this bridge consisted at first of a thou- 
sand arches : but that a great flood swept away the rest, and 
left the bridge in the ruinous condition I now beheld it. ' But 
tell me further,' said he, ' what thou discoverest on it.' ' I see 
multitudes of people passing over it,' said I, ' and a black cloud 
hanging on each end of it.' As I looked more attentively, I 
saw several of the passengers dropping through the bridge into 
the great tide that flowed underneath it ; and, upon further ex- 
amination, perceived there were innumerable trap-doors, that 
lay concealed in the bridge, which the passengers no sooner 
trod upon, but they fell through them into the tide, and imme- 



350 ADDISON. [gEORGE I. 

diately disappeared. These hidden pit-falls were set very thick 
at the entrance of the bridge, so that throngs of people no sooner 
broke through the cloud, but many of them fell into them. 
They grew thinner towards the middle, but multiplied and lay 
closer together towards the end of the arches that were entire. 

"There were, indeed, some persons, but their number was 
very small, that continued a kind of hobbling march on the 
broken arches, but fell through, one after another, being quite 
tired and spent with so long a walk. 

" I passed some time in the contemplation of this wonderful 
structure, and the great variety of objects which it presented. 
My heart was filled with a deep melancholy to see several 
dropping unexpectedly in the midst of mirth and jollity, and 
catching at everything that stood by them to save themselves. 
Some were looking up towards heaven in a thoughtful posture, 
and in the midst of a speculation stumbled and fell out of sight. 
Multitudes were very busy in the pursuit of bubbles that glit- 
tered in their eyes and danced before them ; but often when 
they thought themselves within the reach of them, their footing 
failed, and down they sunk. In this confusion of objects, I 
observed some with scimitars in their hands, who ran to and fro 
upon the bridge, thrusting several persons on trap-doors which 
did not seem to lie in their way, and which they might have 
escaped had they not been thus forced upon them. 

" The genius, seeing me indulge myself on this melancholy 
prospect, told me I had dwelt long enough upon it. ' Take 
thine eyes off the bridge,' said he, 'and tell me if thou yet seest 
any thing thou dost not comprehend.' Upon looking up, ' What 
mean,' said I, ' those great flights of birds that are perpetually 
hovering about the bridge, and settling upon it from time to time ? 
I see vultures, harpies, ravens, cormorants, and among many 
other feathered creatures several little winged boys, that perch 
in great numbers upon the middle arches.' ' These,' said the 
genius, ' are Envy, Avarice, Superstition, Despair, Love, with 
the like cares and passions that infest human life.' 

" I here fetched a deep sigh. * Alas,' said I, ' man was made 
in vain ! how is he given away to misery and mortality ! 
tortured in life, and swallowed up in death !' The genius 
being moved with compassion towards me, bid me quit so 
uncomfortable a prospect. ' Look no more,' said he, ' on 
man in the first stage of his existence, in his setting out for 
eternity ; but cast thine eye on that thick mist into which the 
tide bears the several generations of mortals that fall into it.' 
I directed my sight as I was ordered, and (whether or no the 



1714-1727.] ADDISON. 351 

good genius strengthened it with any supernatural force, or dis- 
sipated part of the mist that was before too thick for the eye to 
penetrate), I saw the valley opening at the farther end, and 
spreading forth into an immense ocean, that had a huge rock of 
adamant running through the midst of it, and dividing it into two 
equal parts. The clouds still rested on one-half of it, insomuch 
that I could discover nothing in it : but the other appeared to 
me a vast ocean planted with innumerable islands, that were 
covered with fruits and flowers, and interwoven with a thousand 
little shining seas that ran among them. I could see persons 
dressed in glorious habits with garlands upon their heads, pass- 
ing among the trees, lying down by the sides of fountains, or 
resting on beds of flowers ; and could hear a confused harmony 
of singing birds, falling waters, human voices, and musical in- 
struments. Gladness grew in me upon the discovery of so 
delightful a scene. I wished for the wings of an eagle, that I 
might fly away to those happy seats ; but the genius told me 
there was no passage to them, except through the gates of death 
that I saw opening every moment upon the bridge. ' The 
islands,' said he, ' that lie so fresh and green before thee, and 
with which the whole face of the ocean appears spotted as far 
as thou canst see, are more in number than the sands on the 
sea-shore ; there are myriads of islands behind those which thou 
here discoverest, reaching farther than thine eye, or even thine 
imagination, can extend itself. These are the mansions of good 
men after death, who, according to the degree and kinds of virtue 
in which they excelled, are distributed among these several 
islands, which abound with pleasures of diff'erent kinds and 
degrees, suitable to the relishes and perfections of those who 
are settled in them ; every island is a paradise accommodated 
to its respective inhabitants. Are not these, O Mirza, habita- 
tions worth contending for? Does life appear miserable, that 
gives thee opportunities of earning such a reward? Is death to 
be feared, that will convey thee to so happy an existence? 
Think not man was made in vain, who has such an eternity 
reserved for him.' I gazed with inexpressible pleasure on these 
happy islands. At length, said I, 'Show me now, I beseech 
thee, the secrets that lie hid under those dark clouds which 
cover the ocean on the other side of the rock of adamant.' The 
genius making me no answer, I turned me about to address 
myself to him a second time, but I found that he had left me : 
I then turned again to the vision which I had been so long con- 
templating : but instead of the rolling tide, the arched bridge, 
and the happy islands, I saw nothing^but the long hollow valley 



352 ADDisox. [george I. 

of Bagdad, wiih oxen, sheep, and camels, grazing upon the sides 
of it." 

The moral tendency of Addison's writings can hardly be over-estimated. 
" On education and tlie domestic virtues." says Dr. Drake, "on the duties 
incumbent on father, husband, wife, and child, his precepts are just and 
cogent, and deHvered in that sweet, insinuating style and manner which 
have rendered him beyond comparison the most useful moralist this country 
ever produced." Who can set limits to the influence which such a mind 
has exerted ? And what a lesson should it read to the conductors of our 
periodic press, from the stately quarterly to the daily newspaper. What 
untold gain would it be to the world if they would think less of party, and 
more of truth, in all her beautiful and holy relations! 



OMNIPRESENCE AND OMNISCIENCE OF THE DEITY. 

I was yesterday about sunset walking in the open fields, until 
the night insensibly fell upon me. I at first amused myself 
with all the richness and variety of colors which appeared in 
the western parts of heaven ; in proportion as they faded away 
and went out, several stars and planets appeared one after an- 
other, until the whole firmament was in a glow. The blueness 
of the ether was exceedingly heightened and enlivened by the 
season of the year, and by the rays of all those luminaries that 
passed through it. The galaxy appeared in its most beautiful 
white. To complete the scene, the full moon rose at length in 
that clouded majesty which Milton takes notice of, and opened 
to the eye a new picture of nature, which was more finely 
shaded and disposed among softer lights than that which the 
sun had before discovered to us. 

As I was surveying the moon walking in her brightness, and 
taking her progress among the constellations, a thought rose in 
me which I believe very often perplexes and disturbs men of 
serious and contemplative natures. David himself fell into it 
in that reflection, ' When I consider the heavens the work of 
thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained ; 
what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man 
that thou regardest him !' In the same manner when I con- 
sidered that infinite host of stars, or, to speak more philosophi- 
cally, of suns which were then shining upon me, with those 
innumerable sets of planets or worlds which were moving 
round their respective suns ; when I still enlarged the idea, and 

^ " I consider the paper on Omnipresence and Omniscience (Spectator, No. 
565) as one of the most perfect, impressive, and instructive pieces of compo- 
sition that ever flowed from the pen of an uninspired moralist.'- — Dr. Drake. 



1714-1727.] ADDISON. 353 

supposed another heaven of suns and worlds rising still above 
this which we discovered, and these still enlightened by a 
superior firmament of luminaries, which are planted at so 
great a distance, that they may appear to the inhabitants of the 
former as the stars do to us; in short, while I pursued this 
thought, I could not but reflect on that little insignificant figure 
which I myself bore amidst the immensity of God's works. 

If we consider God in his omnipresence, his being passes 
through, actuates, and supports the whole frame of nature. His 
creation, and every part of it, is full of him. There is nothing 
he has made that is either so distant, so little, or so inconsider- 
able, which he does not essentially inhabit. His substance is 
within the substance of every being, whether material or im- 
material, and as intimately present to it as that being is to itself. 
It would be an imperfection in him, were he able to remove 
out of one place into another, or to withdraw himself from any- 
thing he has created, or from any part of that space which is 
diffused and spread abroad to infinity. In short, to speak of 
him in the language of the old philosopher, he is a Being whose 
centre is everywhere, and his circumference nowhere. 

In the second place, he is omniscient as well as omnipresent. 
His omniscience, indeed, necessarily and naturally flows from 
his omnipresence; he cannot but be conscious of every motion 
that arises in the whole material world, which he thus essen- 
tially pervades, and of every thought that is stirring in the 
intellectual world, to every part of which he is thus intimately 
united. Several moralists have considered the creation as the 
temple of God, which he has built with his own hands, and 
which is filled with his presence. Others have considered 
infinite space as the receptacle, or rather the habitation of the 
Almighty; but the noblest and most exalted way of consider- 
ing this infinite space is that of Sir Isaac Newton, who calls it 
the sensorium of the Godhead. Brutes and men have their 
sensoriola, or little sensoriums, by which they apprehend the 
presence and perceive the actions of a few objects that lie con- 
tiguous to them. Their knowledge and observation turn within 
a very narrow circle. But as God Almighty cannot but per- 
ceive and know everything in which he resides, infinite space 
gives room to infinite knowledge, and is, as it were, an organ 
to omniscience. 

Were the soul separate from the body, and with one glance 

of thought should start beyond the bounds of the creation, 

should it for millions of years continue its progress through 

infinite space with the same activity, it would still find itself 

23 



354 ADDISON. [george I. 

within the embrace of its Creator, and encompassed round with 
the immensity of the Godhead. Whilst we are in the body he 
is not less present with us because he is concealed from us. 
"0 that I knew M^here I might find him!" says Job. " Behold 
I go forward, but he is not there ; and backward, but I cannot 
perceive him ; on the left hand, where he does work, but I can- 
not behold him ; he hideth himself on the right hand that I 
cannot see him." In short, reason as well as revelation assures 
us, that he cannot be absent from us, notwithstanding he is 
undiscovered by us. 

In this consideration of God Almighty's omnipresence and 
omniscience every uncomfortable thought vanishes. He can- 
not but regard everything that has being, especially such of his 
creatures who fear they are not regarded by him. He is privy 
to all their thoughts, and to that anxiety of heart in particular, 
which is apt to trouble them on this occasion; for, as it is im- 
possible he should overlook any of his creatures, so we may 
be confident that he regards, with an eye of mercy, those who 
endeavor to recommend themselves to his notice, and in an 
unfeigned humility of heart think themselves unworthy that he 
should be mindful of them. 



When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of 
envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, 
every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief 
of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; 
when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the 
vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow. 
When I see kings lying by those who deposed them, w^hen I 
consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that 
divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with 
sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and 
debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, 
of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, 
I consider that great day when we shall all of us be cotempo- 
raries, and make our appearance together. 

As a poet, Addison does not take the highest rank, and yet he has 
written a few pieces which "posterity will not willingly let die." 

' Spectator, No. 26. 



1714-1727.] ADDISON. 355 



AN HYMN. 

I. 

When all thy mercies, my God, 

My rising soul surveys ; 
Transported with the view, I'm lost 

In wonder, love, and praise. 

II. 

O how shall words with equal warmth 

The gratitude declare, 
That glows within my ravish'd heart ! 

But thou canst read it there. 

III. 

Thy Providence my life sustain'd, 
And all my wants redressed. 

When in the silent womb I lay, 
And hung upon the breast. 

IV. 

To all my weak complaints and cries, 

Thy mercy lent an ear. 
Ere yet my feeble thoughts had learnt 

To form themselves in prayer. 

V. 

Unnumber'd comforts to my soul 

Thy tender care bestow'd. 
Before my infant heart conceiv'd 

From whence these comforts flow'd. ♦ 

VI. 

When in the slippery paths of youth 

With heedless steps I ran, 
Thine arm unseen convey'd me safe, 

And led me up to man. 

vn. 

Through hidden dangers, toils, and death 

It gently clear'd my way; 
And through the pleasing snares of vice, 

More to be fear'd than they. 

VIE. 

When worn with sickness, oft hast thou 
With health renew'd my face ; 

And when in sins and sorrows sunk, 
Reviv'd my soul with grace. 

IX. 

Thy bounteous hand with worldly bliss 

Has made my cup run o'er. 
And in a kind and faithful friend 

Has doubled all my store. 



356 ADDISON. [george I. 

X. 

Ten thousand thousand precious gifts 

My daily thanks employ ; 
Nor is the least a cheerful heart, 

That tastes those gifts with joy. 

XL 

Through every period of my life, 

Thy goodness I'll pursue ; 
And after death, in distant worlds, 

The glorious theme renew, 

XII. 

When Nature fails, and day and night 

Divide thy works no more, 
My ever-grateful heart, Lord, 

Thy mercy shall adore. 

xnL 

Through all eternity to thee 

A joyful song I'll raise ; 
For, oh ! eternity's too short 

To utter all thy praise. 



AN ODE. 

I. 

How are thy servants blest, Lord I 

How sure is their defence! 
Eternal wisdom is their guide, 

Their help. Omnipotence. 

II. 

In foreign realms, and lands remote. 

Supported by thy care, 
Through burning climes I pass'd unhurt, 

And breath'd in tainted air. 

HI. 

Thy mercy sweeten'd every soil. 

Made every region please ; 
The hoary Alpine-hills it warm'd, 

And smooth'd the Tyrrhene seas. 

IV. 

Think, O my soul, devoutly think, 

How, with affrighted eyes, 
Thou saw'st the wide-extended deep, 

In all its hoi-rors rise. 

V. 

Confusion dwelt in every face, 

Aud fear in every heart. 
When waves on waves, and gulfs on gulfs 

O'ercame the pilot's art. 



1714-1727.] ADDISON. 357 

VI. 

Yet then from all vaj griefs, Lord, 

Thy mercy set me free ; 
Whilst, in the confidence of prayer, 

My soul took hold on thee. 

VII. 
For though in dreadful whirls we hung 

High on the broken wave, 
I knew thou wert not slow to hear. 

Nor impotent to save. 

\m. 

The storm was laid, the winds retir'd, 

Obedient to thy will ; 
The sea, that roar'd at thy command, 

At thy command was still. 

IX. 

In midst of dangers, fears, and death. 

Thy goodness I'll adore; 
And praise Thee for thy mercies past. 

And humbly hope for more. 

X. 

My life, if thou preserv'st my life. 

Thy sacrifice shall be; 
And death, if death must be my doom. 

Shall join my soul to Thee. 



PARAPHRASE OF PSALM XXIII. 

L 

The Lord my pasture shall prepare, 
And feed me with a shepherd's care; 
His presence shall my -wants supply, 
And guard me with a watchful eye : 
My noon-day walks he shall attend, 
And all my midnight hours defend. 

IL 
When in the sultry glebe I faint, 
Or on the thirsty mountain pant ; 
To fertile vales and dewy meads 
My weary wandering steps he leads : 
Where peaceful rivers, soft and slow, 
Amid the verdant landscape flow. 

IIL 

Though in the paths of death I tread. 
With gloomy horrors overspread, 
My stedfast heart shal I fear no ill. 
For thoii, Lord, art with me still ; 
Thy friendly crook shall give me aid, 
And guide me through the dreadful shade. 



358 ADDISON. [george I. 

IV. 

Though in a bare and rugged way, 
Through devious lonely wilds I stray, 
Thy bounty shall my wants beguile, 
The barren wilderness shall smile. 
With sudden greens and herbage crown'd, 
And streams shall murmur all around. 



CATO MEDITATING SUICIDE, 

Is sittmg m a thoughtful posture. In his hand he holds Plato's work on 
the Immortality of the Soul; while a drawn sword lies by him on the table.' 

It must be so — Plato, thou rcason'st well ! • 

Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 

This longing after immortality'? 

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror, 

Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul 

Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 

'Tis the divinity that stirs within us ; 

'Tis heaven itself, that points out an hereafter, 

And intimates eternity to man. 

Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought! 

Through what variety of untry'd being, 

Through what new scenes and changes must we pass ! 

The wide, th' unbounded prospect lies before me ; 

But shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it. 

Here will I hold. If there's a power above us, 

(And that there is all nature cries aloud 

Through all her works,) he must delight in virtue; 

And that which he delights in must be happy. 

But when! or where! — This world was made for Caesar. 

I'm weary of conjectures — This must end them. 

[^Laymg his hand upon his sword. 
Thus am I doubly arm'd : my death and life, 
My bane and antidote, are both before me : 
This in a moment brings me to an end, 
But this informs me I shall never die. 
The soul, secur'd in her existence, smiles 
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. 
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years ; 
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth. 
Unhurt amidst the war of elements, 
The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds, 

* Cato, Act V, Scene L 



1714-1727.] PRIOR. 359 



MATTHEW PRIOR, 1665—1721. 

Of the parentage of Prior very little is known. He was nephew of the 
keeper of a tavern at Charing Cross, where he was found by the Earl of 
Dorset, and sent, at his expense, to be educated at Cambridge, where he 
obtained a fellowship. By the same nobleman's influence he went as sec- 
retary to the Enghsh ambassador at the Hague. In 1697 he was secretary 
of legation at the treaty of Ryswick, and the next year held the same office 
at the court of France. At fifty- three years of age he found himself, after all 
his important employments, with no other means of subsistence than his 
fellowship at Cambridge ; but the publication of his poems by subscription, 
and the kindness of Lord Hasley, restored him to easy circumstances for the 
rest of his Ufe. He died, after a Hngering illness, in 1721, in the fifty-eighth 
year of his age. 

" Prior," says Campbell, " was one of the last of the race of poets who 
relied for ornament on scholastic allusion and pagan machinery ; but he used 
them like Swift, more in jest than earnest, and with good effect." His 
poetry has the qualities of ease, fluency, and correctness. We give one 
specimen. 



AN EPITAPH. 

Interr'd beneath this marble stone 

Lie sauntering Jack and idle Joan. 

While rolling threescore years and one 

Did round this globe their courses run, 

If human things went ill or well, 

If changing empires rose or fell, 

The morning past, the evening came, 

And found this couple still the same. 

They walk'd, and eat, good folks: what then? 

Why then they walk'd and eat again : 

They soundly slept the night away; 

They did just nothing all the day: 

Nor sister either had nor brother ; 

They seem'd just tallied for each other. 

Their moral and economy 
Most perfectly they made agree : 
Each virtue kept its proper bound, 
Nor trespass'd on the other's ground. 
Nor fame nor censure they regarded ; 
They neither punish'd nor rewarded. 
He cared not what the footman did; 
Her maids she neither praised nor chid : 
So every servant took his course, 
And, bad at first, they all grew worse. 
Slothful disorder fiU'd his stable. 
And sluttish plenty deck'd her table. 



360 RUSSELL. [gEORGE I. 

Their beer was strong ; their wine was port ; 
Their meal was large ; their grace was short 
They gave the poor the remnant meat, 
Just when it grew not fit to eat. 

They paid the church and parish rate, 
And took, but read not, the receipt; 
For which they claimed their Sunday's due, 
Of shimbering in an upper pew. 

No man's defects sought they to know : 
So never made themselves a foe. 
No man's good deeds did they commend ; 
So never raised themselves a friend. 
Nor cherish "d they relations poor; 
That might decrease their present store: 
Nor barn nor house did they repair ; 
That might oblige their future heir. 

They neither added nor confounded ; 
They neither wanted nor atounded. 
Each Christmas they accounts did clear, 
And wound their bottom round the year. 
Nor tear nor smile did they employ 
At news of public grief or joy. 
When bells were rung and bonfires made, 
If nsk"d, they ne'er denied their aid: 
Their jug was to the ringers carried, 
Whoever eidier died or married. 
Their billet at the fire was found. 
Whoever was deposed or erown'd. 

Nor good, nor bad, nor fools, nor wise ; 
They would not learn, nor could ad\*ise : 
Without love, hatred, joy, or fear, 
They led — a kind of — as it were: 
Nor wish"d, nor cared, nor laugh'd, nor cried: 
And so they lived, and so they ched. 



LADY RACHEL RUSSELL, 1636-1723. 

This most admirable woman was the wife of Lord William Russell, who 
was judicially murdered, on an alleged charge of treason, July 21, 1683. At 
the trial of her husband she accompanied him into court ; and when he was 
inhumanly refused counsel, and allowed only an amanuensis, she stood forth 
as that assistant, and excited the deepest sympathy as well as admiration in 
all who beheld her. After sentence was pronounced against him, she pro- 
mised him to take care of her own life, for the sake of his children, — a pro- 
mise she religiously kept, though she survived him above forty years. "Her 
letters," says Burnet, "are written with an elegant simplicity, with truth 
and nature, which can flow only from the heart. The tenderness and con- 
stancy of her affection for her murdered lord, present an image to melt the 
soul." 



1714-1727.] RUSSELL. 361 

A collection of her letters between herself and her correspondents was 
published in 1773. The following is 



TO DR. FITZ WILLIAM.' 

I need not tell you, good doctor, how little capable I have 
been of such an exercise as this.^ You will soon find how unfit 
I am still for it, since my yet disordered thoughts can offer me 
no other than such words as express the deepest sorrows, and 
confused, as my yet amazed mind is. But such men as you, 
and particularly one so much my friend, will, I know, bear with 
my weakness, and compassionate my distress, as you have 
already done by your good letter, and excellent prayer. I en- 
deavor to make the best use I can of both ; but I am so evil and 
unworthy a creature, that though I have desires, yet I have no 
dispositions, or worthiness, towards receiving comfort. You, 
that knew us both, and how we lived, must allow I have just 
cause to bewail my loss. I know it is common with others to 
lose a friend ; but to have lived with such a one, it may be ques- 
tioned how few can glory in the like happiness, so consequently 
lament the like loss. Who can but shrink at such a blow, till 
by the mighty aids of his Holy Spirit, we will let the gift of 
God, which he hath put into our hearts, interpose ? That rea- 
son which sets a measure to our souls in prosperity, will then 
suggest many things which we have seen and heard, to mode- 
rate us in such sad circumstances as mine. But alas ! my un- 
derstanding is clouded, my faith weak, sense strong, and the 
devil busy to fill my thoughts with false notions, difficulties, 

and doubts as of a future condition ^ of prayer : but this 

I hope to make matter of humiliation, not sin. Lord, let me 
understand the reason of these dark and wounding providences, 
that I sink not under the discouragements of my own thoughts: 
I know I have deserved my punishment, and will be silent under 
it; but yet secretly my heart mourns, too sadly, I fear, and can- 
not be comforted, because I have not the dear companion and 
sharer of all my joys and sorrows. I want him to talk with, to 
walk with, to eat and sleep with ; all these things are irksome 
to me now ; the day unwelcome, and the night so too ; all com- 
pany and meals I would avoid, if it might be ; yet all this is, 
that I enjoy not the world in my own way, and this sure hin- 

^ A divine for whom Lady Russell had a great esteem and friendship ; he 
had been chaplain to her father, as he was afterwards to the Duke of York. 
2 The loss of her husband. 3 Two or three words torn off. 



362 STEELE. [gEORGE II. 

ders my comfort; when I see my children before me, I remem- 
ber the pleasure he took in them; this makes my heart shrink. 
Can I regret his quitting a lesser good for a bigger ? Oh ! if I 
did stedfastly believe, I could not be dejected; for I will not 
injure myself to say, I offer my mind any inferior consolation 
to supply this loss. No ; I most willingly forsake this world, 
this vexatious, troublesome world, in which I have no other 
business, but to rid my soul from sin, secure by faith and a good 
conscience my eternal interests, with patience and courage bear 
my eminent misfortunes, and ever hereafter be above the smiles 
and frowns of it. And when I have done the remnant of the 
work appointed me on earth, then joyfully wait for the heavenly 
perfection in God's good time, when by his infinite mercy I may 
be accounted worthy to enter into the same place of rest and 

repose where he is gone, for whom only I grieve I do' 

fear. From that contemplation must come my best support. 
Good doctor, you will think, as you have reason, that I set no 
bounds, when I let myself loose to my complaints ; but I will 
release you, first fervently asking the continuance of your 
prayers for Your infinitely afflicted, 

But very faithful servant, 

R. Russell. 

Woborne Abbey, 
30th September, 1684. 



SIR RICHARD STEELE, 1671—1729. 

Richard Steele was born in Dublin, 1671. His father sent him to be 
educated at the Charterhouse in London, whence he was removed to Merton 
College, Oxford, 1691. Soon after leaving the university, he unfortunately 
imbibed a fondness for the army, and entered himself as a private in the 
horse-guards, from which he was soon promoted to the office of ensign. 
Scarcely any position in life is so dangerous to one's morals, as a situation 
in the army or navy, and so it proved to Steele, who soon plunged into the 
vortex of dissipation and intemperance ; by which he thereby laid the founda- 
tion of much misery and remorse during his life. In 1702 he first attracted 
the notice of the public as an author, by the publication of " The Funeral, 
or Grief a-la-3Iode," a comedy which was successfully acted in that year. 
Two more comedies, " The Tender Husband," acted in 1703, and " The 
Lying Lover," 1704, followed this first attempt. The latter proving a failure, 
Steele determined, for a time at least, to desert the stage, and projected the 

* A word torn off. 



1727-1760,] STEELE. 363 

publication of a periodical paper. The title of the paper, as the author ob- 
serves in the first number, was decided upon in honor of the fair sex, and the 
Tatler was therefore placed under their Jurisdiction. The name of its con- 
ductor, Isaac Bickekstaff, was taken from a previous publication of Swift, 
It was commenced on the 12th of April, 1709. How, and how early Ad- 
dison came to know the author, is mentioned in the life of the former. " If 
we consider the invention of Steele, as discoverable in the scheme and con- 
duct of the Tatler ; if we reflect upon the finely drawn and highly finished 
character of Bickerstaif, in his varied offices of philosopher, humorist, astro- 
loger, and censor, the vast number of his own elegant and useful papers, 
and the beauty and value of those which, through his means, saw the light, 
we cannot hesitate in honoring him with the appellation of the father of 
periodical writin&."^ 

In March, 1711, he began, in conjunction with Addison, "The Spec- 
tator," and in 1713 " The Guardian." After the accession of George I., 
Steele was made, in 1715, surveyor of the royal stables at Hampton Court, 
and was knighted. The same year he was chosen member of Parhament 
for Boroughbridge in Yorkshire, and was high in favor with the reigning 
powers. But his good fortune did not last long, and the latter years of his 
life he suffered a good deal from poverty, caused in part from his speculating 
in new projects, one of which was, to convey live salmon from the coast of 
Ireland to the London market. At a great expense he had a vessel con- 
structed for the purpose ; but alas ! the salmon so battered themselves in their 
passage, as to be totally unfit for the market, and poor Steele lost nearly his 
all. "No friend of humanity," says Dr. Drake, "can contemplate the 
situation of Steele, during the latter period of his life, without sympathy and 
sorrow. His frailties, the origin of all his misfortunes, were not the offspring 
of vice, but merely owing to habitual carelessness, and the want of worldly 
prudence. Compassionate in his heart, unbounded in his benevolence, no 
object of distress ever left him with a murmur ; and in the hour of prosperity- 
he was ever ready, both with his influence and his property, to promote the 
views of Uterature and science, and to assist the efforts of unprotected 
genius." 

The few last years of his life he resided, by the indulgence of the mort- 
gagee, at his seat at Llangunnor, near Caermarthen, Wales, where he died 
on the 21st of September, 1729. 

The style of Steele is remarkable for its flowing ease, and naturalness, but 
he is often negligent and careless, and frequently ungrammatical. It is his 
misfortune that, being a co-laborer with Addison in the same walks of litera- 
ture, he is constantly compared with him, and of course must generally suflTer 
by the comparison ; though at times, when he has written with more than 
usual care, he seems evidently to have imbibed a portion of Addisonian 
grace. But compared with some of the best of his predecessors, he appears 
in a very favorable light. " He will be found in purity and simplicity infe- 
rior to Tillotson ; to Temple in elegance and harmony; to Dryden in rich- 

* Drake's Essays, vol. i. p. 79. 



364 STEELE. [george n. 

ness, mellowness, and variety. To the two former, however, he is equal in 
correctness; to the latter in vivacity ; and with ail he is nearly on a level as 
to ease and perspicuity."' 

The following extracts from his periodical papers will give the idea of his 
best manner and style. 



THE DREAM. 

I was once myself in agonies of grief that are unutterable, and 
in so great a distraction of mind, that I thought myself even out 
of the possibility of receiving comfort. The occasion was as 
follows. When I was a youth in a part of the army which was 
then quartered at Dover, I fell in love with an agreeable young 
woman, of a good family in those parts, and had the satisfaction 
of seeing my addresses kindly received, which occasioned the 
perplexity I am going to relate. 

We were in a calm evening diverting ourselves upon the top 
of a cliff with the prospect of the sea, and trifling away the time 
in such little fondnesses as are most ridiculous to people in 
business, and most agreeable to those in love. 

In the midst of these our innocent endearments, she snatched 
a paper of verses out of my hand, and ran away with them. 
I was following her, when on a sudden the ground, though at 
a considerable distance from the verge of the precipice, sunk 
under her, and threw her down from so prodigious an height 
upon such a range of rocks, as would have dashed her into ten 
thousand pieces, had her body been made of adamant. It is much 
easier for my reader to imagine my state of mind upon such an 
occasion, than for me to express it. I said to myself, it is not 
in the power of heaven to relieve me! when I awaked, equally 
transported and astonished, to see myself drawn out of an afflic- 
tion which, the very moment before, appeared to me altogether 
inextricable. 

The impressions of grief and horror were so lively on this 
occasion, that while they lasted they made me more miserable 
than I was at the real death of this beloved person, which hap- 
pened a few months after, at a time when the match between 
us was concluded; inasmuch as the imaginary death was un- 
timely, and I myself in a sort an accessary ; whereas her real 

^ Drake's Essays, vol. i. p. 201. 

2 Tatler, No. 117. " One of the finest moral tales," observes Dr. Beattie, 
« I ever read, is an account in the Tatler, which, though it has every appear- 
ance of a real dream, comprehends a moral so sublime and so interesting, that 
I question whether any man who attends to it can ever forget it; and if he 
Femembers, whether he can cease to be the better for it." 



1727-1760.] STEELE. 365 

decease had at least these alleviations, of being natural and 
inevitable. 

The memory of the dream I have related still dwells so 
strongly upon me, that I can never read the description of 
Dover-cliff in Shakspeare's tragedy of King Lear,^ without a 
fresh sense of my escape. The prospect from that place is 
drawn with such proper incidents, that whoever can read it 
without growing giddy must have a good head, or a very bad 
one. 

THE DEATH OF HIS FATHER.^ 

The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was upon the death 
of my father, at which time I was not quite five years of age ; 
but was rather amazed at what all the house meant, than pos- 
sessed with a real understanding why nobody was willing to 
play with me. I remember I went into the room where his 
body lay, and my mother sat weeping alone by it. I had ray 
battledore in my hand, and fell a beating the coffin, and calling 
papa ; for, I know not how, I had some slight idea that he was 
locked up there. My mother catched me in her arms, and, 
transported beyond aU patience of the silent grief she was before 
in, she almost smothered me in her embraces ; and told me in 
a flood of tears, '' Papa could not hear me, and would play 
with me no more, for they were going to put him under ground^ 
whence he could never come to us again." She was a very 
beautiful woman, of a noble spirit, and there was a dignity in 
her grief amidst all the wildness of her transport ; which, me- 
thought, struck me with an instinct of sorrow, that before I was 
sensible of what it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and has 
made pity the weakness of my heart ever since. The mind in 

- ** Come on, sir ; here's the place : — stand still ! How fearful 
And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low ! 
The crows and choughs, that wing the midway air, 
Show scarce so gross as beetles. Half way down 
Hangs one that gathers samphire — Dreadful trade ! 
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head : 
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach, 
Appear like mice, and yon tall anchoring bark, 
Diminish'd to her cock ;(^) her cock, a buoy 
Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge. 
That on the annumber'd idle pebbles chafes, 
Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more. 
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight 
Topple down headlong." 
* Taller, No. 181. 

(•) Hex coek-boal, the sraali boat of a ship. 



366 STEELE. [gEORGE II. 

infancy is, methinks, like the body in embryo ; and receives 
impressions so forcible, that they are as hard to be removed by 
reason, as any mark, with which a child is born, is to be taken 
away by any future application. Hence it is, that good nature 
in me is no merit; but having been so frequently overwhelmed 
with her tears before I knew the cause of any affliction, or could 
draw defences from my own judgment, I imbibed commisera- 
tion, remorse, and an unmanly gentleness of mind, which has 
since insnared me into ten thousand calamities; from whence I 
can reap no advantage, except it be, that, in such a humor as I 
am now in, I can the better indulge myself in the softness of 
humanity, and enjoy that sweet anxiety which arises from the 
memory of past afflictions. 

THE STRENGTH OF TRUE LOVE.^ 

A young gentleman and lady of ancient and honorable houses 
in Cornwall had from their childhood entertained for each other 
a generous and noble passion, which had been long opposed by 
their friends, by reason of the inequality of their fortunes ; but 
their constancy to each other, and obedience to those on whom 
they depended, wrought so much upon their relations, that these 
celebrated lovers were at length joined in marriage. Soon after 
their nuptials, the bridegroom was obliged to go into a foreign 
country, to take care of a considerable fortune, which was left 
him by a relation, and came very opportunely to improve their 
moderate circumstances. They received the congratulations of 
all the country on this occasion; and I remember it was a com- 
mon sentence in every one's mouth, " You see how faithful 
love is rewarded." 

He took this agreeable voyage, and sent home every post 
fresh accounts of his success in his affairs abroad ; but at last, 
though he designed to return w^ith the next ship, he lamented 
in his letters, that " business would detain him some time longer 
from home," because he would give himself the pleasure of an 
unexpected arrival. 

The young lady, after the heat of the day, walked every 
evening on the sea-shore, near which she lived, with a familiar 
friend, her husband's kinswoman; and diverted herself with 
what objects they met there, or upon discourses of the future 
methods of life, in the happy change of their circumstances. 
They stood one evening on the shore together in a perfect tran- 

» Tatler, No. 8.2. 



1727-1760.] STEELE. 367 

quillity, observing the setting of the sun, the calm face of the deep, 
and the silent heaving of the waves, which gently rolled towards 
them, and broke at their feet; when at a distance her kinswoman 
saw something float on the waters, which she fancied was a 
chest; and with a smile told her, "She saw it first, and if it 
came ashore full of jewels, she had a right to it." They both 
fixed their eyes upon it and entertained themselves with the 
subject of the wreck, the cousin still asserting her right; but 
promising, " if it was a prize, to give her a very rich coral for 
her youngest child." Their mirth soon abated, when they ob- 
served, upon the nearer approach, that it was a human body. 
The young lady, who had a heart naturally filled with pity and 
compassion, made many melancholy reflections on the occasion. 
*' Who knows," said she, "but this man may be the only hope 
and heir of a wealthy house ; the darling of indulgent parents, 
who are now in impertinent mirth, and pleasing themselves with 
the thoughts of oflfering him a bride they had got ready for him ? 
or, may he not be the master of a family that wholly depended 
upon his life ? There may, for aught we know, be half a dozen 
fatherless children, and a tender wife, now exposed to poverty 
by his death. What pleasure might he have promised himself 
in the different welcome he was to have from her and them ! 
But let us go away; it is a dreadful sight! The best office we 
can do, is to take care that the poor man, whoever he is, may 
be decently buried." She turned away, when a wave threw 
the carcass on the shore. The kinswoman immediately shrieked 
out, " Oh, my cousin !" and fell upon the ground. The un- 
happy wife went to help her friend, when she saw her own 
husband at her feet, and dropped in a swoon upon the body. 
An old woman, who had been the gentleman's nurse, came out 
about this time to call the ladies to supper, and found her child, 
as she always called him, dead on the shore, her mistress and 
kinswoman both lying dead by him. Her loud lamentations, 
and calling her young master to life, soon awaked the friend 
from her trance ; but the wife was gone for ever. 

THE BLIND RESTORED TO SIGHT.' 

While Others are busied in relations which concern the inte- 
rest of princes, the peace of nations, and revolutions of empire; 
I think, though these are very great subjects, my theme of dis- 
course is sometimes to be of matters of a yet higher considera- 

» Tatler, No. 55. 



368 STEELE. [gEORGE II. 

tion. The slow steps of Providence and nature, and strange 
events which are brought about in an instant, are what, as they 
come within our view and observation, shall be given to the 
public. Such things are not accompanied with show and noise, 
and therefore seldom draw the eyes of the unattentive part of 
mankind ; but are very proper at once to exercise our humanity, 
please our imaginations, and improve our judgments. It may 
not, therefore, be unuseful to relate many circumstances, which 
were observable upon a late cure done upon a young nobleman 
who was born blind, and on the twenty-ninth of June last re- 
ceived his sight, at the age of twenty years, by the operation 
of an oculist. This happened no farther off than Newington ; 
and the work was prepared for in the following manner. 

The operator, Mr. Grant, having observed the eyes of his 
patient, and convinced his friends and relations, among others 
the reverend Mr. Caswell, minister of the place, that it was 
highly probable that he should remove the obstacle which pre- 
vented the use of his sight; all his acquaintance, who had any 
regard for the young man, or curiosity to be present when one 
of full age and understanding received a new sense, assembled 
themselves on this occasion. Mr. Caswell, being a gentleman 
particularly curious, desired the whole company, in case the 
blindness should be cured, to keep silence : and let the patient 
make his own observations, without the direction of any thing 
he had received by his other senses, or the advantage of dis- 
covering his friends by their voices. Among several others, the 
mother, brethren, sisters, and a young gentlewoman for whom 
he had a passion, were present. The work was performed 
with great skill and dexterity. When the patient first received 
the dawn of light, there appeared such an ecstacy in his action, 
that he seemed ready to swoon away in the surprise of joy and 
wonder. The surgeon stood before him with his instruments 
in his hands. The young man observed him from head to 
foot; after which he surveyed himself as carefully, and seemed 
to compare him to himself; and observing both their hands, 
seemed to think they were exactly alike, except the instruments, 
which he took for parts of his hands. When he had continued 
in his amazement for some time, his mother could not longer 
bear the agitations of so many passions as thronged upon her; 
but fell upon his neck, crying out, "My son ! my son !" The 
youth knew her voice, and could speak no more than, " Oh 
me ! are you my mother ?" and fainted. The whole room, you 
will easily conceive, were very affectionately employed in re- 
covering him ; but^ above all, the young gentlewoman who loved 



1727-1760.] STEELE. 369 

him, and whom he loved, shrieked in the loudest manner. That 
voice seemed to have a sudden effect upon him as he recovered, 
and he showed a double curiosity in observing her as she spoke 
and called to him ; until at last he broke out, " What has been 
done to me ? Whither am I carried ? Is all this about me, 
the thing I have heard so often of? Is this the light? Is this 
seeing? Were you always thus happy, when you said you 
were glad to see each other ? Where is Tom, who used to lead 
me? But, I could now, methinks,go anywhere without him ?" 
He offered to move, but seemed afraid of every thing around 
him. When they saw his difficulty, they told him, " until he 
became better acquainted with his new being, he must let the 
servant still lead him." The boy was called for, and presented 
to him. Mr. Caswell asked him, " What sort of thing he took 
Tom to be before he had seen him ?" He answered, " he be- 
lieved there was not so much of him as himself; but he fancied 
him the same sort of creature." The noise of this sudden change 
made all the neighborhood throng to the place where he was. 
As he saw the crowd thickening, he desired Mr. Caswell to 
tell him how many there were in all to be seen. The gentle- 
man, smiling, answered him, that " it would be very proper for 
him to return to his late condition, and suffer his eyes to be 
covered, until they had received strength ; for he might remem- 
ber well enough, that by degrees he had from litde to little come 
to the strength he had at present in his ability in v/alking and 
moving : and that it was the same thing with his eyes, which," 
he said, " would lose the power of continuing to him that won- 
derful transport he was now in, except he would be contented 
to lay aside the use of them, until they were strong enough to 
bear the light without so much feeling as, he knew, he under- 
went at present." With much reluctance he was prevailed 
upon to have his eyes bound ; in which condition they kept 
him in a dark room, until it was proper to let the organ receive 
its objects without further precaution. During the time of this 
darkness, he bewailed himself in the most distressed manner ; 
and accused all his friends, complaining that " some incantation 
had been wrought upon him, and some strange magic used to 
deceive him into an opinion that he had enjoyed what they 
called sight." He added, " that the impressions then let in 
upon his soul would certainly distract him, if he were not so 
at that present." At another time, he would strive to name 
the persons he had seen among the crowd after he was couched, 
and would pretend to speak, in perplexed terms, of his own 
making, of what he, in that short time, observed. But on 
2i 



370 BE FOE. [OEORCE 11. 

The siKth instant it was thought fit to unbind his l-ead. and the 

youna "oman whom he loved w^s instructed '« OP-^" ^'^'^^f/ 

aceordin.ly; as well to endear herself to h.m by sueh a e.r- 

cum ta"?e!;s to moderate his ecstaeies by the persuasion of a 
cumsiance, a ^^^^ ^.^^ ^^ 1^^^^ ^^.^^ , j 

WLV thifblved^y'ung .'oman began to take off the bind.ng 
nf his eves she talked to him as follows : „ , , , 

"Mr'w lliam, I am now taking the binding off, though when 
I cons der what I am doing, I tremble with the apprehension, 
hat tlo i-h I have from my very childhood loved you, dark as 
voi^'wer^and though you had conceived so strong a love for 
me you% find there is such a thing as beauty, which may 
rnsnire you into a thousand passions of which you are now 
innocent and take vou from me for ever. But, before I put 
r°eTf wTat hazard, tell me in what manner that love, you 
Zlys professed to me, entered into your heart; for its usual 

^''Th^'roung mail Ins'wered, " Dear Lydia, if I an. to lose by 
siaiit the s"ff pantings which I have alwavs felt when I heard 
vo oice ; i I au^no more to distinguish the step of her 
C when he approaches me, but to change that sweet and 
freouJi t Pkasure for such an amazement as I knew the ittle 
2 I htelv saw; or if I am to have any thing besides, which 
Zy ale lorn n e the sense I have of what appeared most 
En. to me at that time, which apparition ,t seems was you; 
null out these eves, before they lead me to be ungrateful to 
?o«, or undo mvself. I wished for them but to see you : pull 

ple^a d h:r::if "vith playing witli his perplexities n a his 
,,1U- tn her he showed but very famt ideas of any thing vMiicn 
htd 10 been re eived at the ears; and closed his protestation 
t, t r bv s:;ing, that if he were to see Valentia -d Barcebna 
whom he supposed the most esteemed of all women b> tie 
quarrel there ,vas about them, he would never like any but 
Lydia. 



DANIEL DE FOE, 1661—1731. 

DA^fiEL De Foe, the author of that remarkable book of world-wide fame 
^^ Robinson Crusoe'," was bora .n London, 1661. Of his jout^^ >-- ^ 
know but little; but that his education was not neglected, and that he ap 



1727-1760.] DE FOE. 371 

plied himself with assiduity to his studies, we may fairly infer from his sub- 
sequent success in the walks of literature. He first engaged in trade, but 
after a few years' trial of it, he found that that was not his sphere : his lively 
imagination, eager interest in politics, and fondness for literature, disqualified 
him for commercial matters. In 1700 he published his " True-Born English- 
man," a pamphlet in answer to a libel on King WilHam, with which his 
majesty was well pleased. From that time forth, he wrote with unwearied 
assiduity, and in 1704 first published his "Review," a periodical paper writ- 
ten exclusively by himself, and which he continued to publish twice or three 
times a week for nine years. This resembled, more than any other preceding 
work, the Tatler and Spectator ; but borne down by a rude mass of tempo- 
rary and uninteresting matter, connected with the news and pohtics of the 
day, it soon sunk into oblivion. 

After the death of Queen Anne, in 1714, the continued attacks of his 
political opponents so weighed upon his mind and depressed his spirits, that 
his health gave way, and he was for a time dangerously ill. When he re- 
covered, he resolved to abandon his old field of political satire and invective, 
and to enter upon a new one, and accordingly he put forth the first part of 
his inimitable "Adventures of Robinson Crusoe," which no story has ever 
exceeded in popularity. The great success that attended this, induced him 
to write a second and a third part, which, however, were very inferior to the 
first. The multitude of books and pamphlets which he subsequently pub- 
lished, we have not space to enumerate.^ Some of the most popular of these 
were, "The Adventures of Captain Singleton," " The Fortunes of Moll 
Flanders," " The Memoirs of a Cavalier," "A Tour through Great Bri- 
tain," "A History of the Plague," and " The true Relation of the Appari- 
tion of one Mrs. Veal, the next Day after her Death." The last was after- 
wards subjoined to the editions of " Drelincourt on Death," and made that 
otherwise unsaleable book much sought after. One of his works had the 
following curious title: " Mars stript of his armor: a lashing caricature of 
the habits and manners of all kinds of military men, written on purpose to 
dehght quiet trades-people, and cure their daughters of their passion for 
red coats." He died on the 24th of April, 1731, in the seventy-first year of 
his age. 

De Foe was a very remarkable man. His power, as a writer, of seizing 
and retaining a strong hold upon the popular mind, has seldom been equalled. 
Of great originality, and of strong and clear conceptions, which he was able 
to embody in language equally perspicuous and forcible, he has the power of 
"forging the handwriting of nature," and of giving to fiction all the appear" 
ance of reality. By a particularity and minuteness of description which his 

* Lowndes gives the titles of ninety-seven different works that De Foe wrote, 
and his list is probably incomplete. " The fertility of De Foe," says Sir Wal- 
ter Scott, " was astonishing. He wrote on all occasions and on all subjects, 
and seemingly had little time for preparation on the subject in hand, but 
treated it from the stores which his memory retained of early reading, and 
such hints as he had caught up in society, not one of which seems to have 
been lost upon him." Read an interesting life of De Foe in Sir Walter 
Scott's Prose Works. 



372 DE FOE. [CEORGE II. 

skill prevents from being tedious, he increases the probability of his story, 
and gives to its reader a continually increasing interest in it ; so that no 
author of imaginary tales has impressed so many persons with the belief 
that they have been reading a true, rather than a fictitious narrative. Of 
that most popular, delightful, and extraordinary of all his works, "Robinson 
Crusoe," which had lost none of its original attractions even at the distance 
of half a century, Dr. Johnson observed, " Nobody ever laid it down without 
wishing it were longer." 



ROBINSON" CRUSOE DLSCOVERS THE FOOT-PRINT. 

It happened one day about noon, <joing toward.s my boat, I 
was exceedingly j^^urprised witii the print of a man's naked foot 
on the shore, which was very plain to be seen in the sand : I 
stood like one thunder-struck, or as if I had seen an apparition; 
I listened, I looked round me, I could hear nothing, nor see 
anything; I went up to a rising ground to look farther: I went 
up the shore, and down the shore, but it was all one, I could 
see no other impression but that one : I went to it again to see 
if there were any more, and to observe if it might not be my 
fancy ; but there was no room for that, for there was exactly 
the very print of a foot, toes, heel, and every part of a foot; 
how it came thither I knew not, nor could in the least imagine. 
But after innumoral)lc lluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly 
(Confused, and out of mystlf, I came home to my fortification, 
not feeling, as we say, the ground I went on, but terrified to 
the last degree, looking behind me at every two or three steps, 
mistaking every bush and tree, and fancying every stump at a 
distance to be a man ; nor is it possible to describe how many 
various shapes an affrighted imagination represented things to 
me in ; how many wild ideas were formed every moment in 
my fancy, and what strange unaccountable whimsies came into 
my thoughts by the way. 

When I came to my castle, for so I think I called it ever 
after this, I fled into it like one pursued ; whether I went over 
by the ladder, as first contrived, or went in at the hole in the 
rock, which I called a door, I cannot remember ; for never 
frighted hare fled to cover, or fox to earth, with more terror of 
mind than I to this retreat. 

How strange a chequer-work of Providence is the life of 
man ! And by what secret differing springs are the affections 
hurried about, as differing circumstances present ! To-day we 
love what to-morrow we hate ; to-day we seek what to-morrow 
we shun ; to-day we desire what to-morrow we fear ; nav, even 



1727-1760.] DE FOE. 373 

tremble at the apprehensions of. This was exemplified in me 
at this time in the most lively manner imaginable ; for I, whose 
only affliction was, that I seemed banished from human society, 
that I was alone, circumscribed by the boundless ocean, cut off 
from mankind, and condemned to what I call a silent life ; that 
I was as one whom heaven thought not worthy to be numbered 
among the living, or to appear among the rest of his creatures ; 
that to have seen one of my own species, would have seemed 
to me a raising me from death to life, and the greatest blessing 
that heaven itself, next to the supreme blessing of salvation, 
could bestow ; I say, that I should now tremble at the very 
apprehensions of seeing a man, and was ready to sink into the 
ground, at but the shadow, or silent appearance of a man's 
having set his foot on the island. 

Such is the uneven state of human life ; and it afforded me 
a great many curious speculations afterwards, when I had a 
little recovered my first surprise ; I considered that this was 
the station of life the infinitely wise and good providence of 
God had determined for me ; that as I could not foresee what 
the ends of divine wisdom might be in all this, so I was not to 
dispute his sovereignty, who, as I was his creature, had an 
undoubted right by creation to govern and dispose o^ me abso- 
lutely as he thought fit ; and who, as I was a creature who had 
offended him, had likewise a judicial right to condemn me to 
what punishment he thought fit ; and that it was my part to 
submit to bear his indignation, because I had sinned against him. 

I then reflected, that God, who was not only righteous, but 
omnipotent, as he had thought fit thus to punish and afflict me, 
so he was able to deliver me ; that if he did not think fit to do 
it, it was my unquestioned duty to resign myself absolutely and 
entirely to his will : and, on the other hand, it was my duty 
also to hope in him, pray to him, and quietly to attend the dic- 
tates and directions of his daily providence. 

These thoughts took me up many hours, days, nay, I may 
say, weeks and months ; and one particular effect of my cogi- 
tations on this occasion I cannot omit; viz., one morning early, 
lying in my bed, and filled with thoughts about my danger from 
the appearance of savages, I found it discomposed me very 
much ; upon which those words of the Scripture came into my 
thoughts. Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will de- 
liver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. 

Upon this, rising cheerfully out of my bed, my heart was not 
only comforted, but I was guided and encouraged to pray earn- 
estly to God for deliverance. Wh^n I had done praying, I 



374 DE FOE. [geORGE II. 

took up my Bible, and opening it to read, the first words that 
presented to me, were. Wait on the Lord, and be of good cou- 
rage, and he shall strengthen thy heart: Wait, I say, on the 
Lord. It is impossible to express the comfort this gave me ; 
and in return, I thankfully laid down the book, and was no 
more sad, at least, not on that occasion. 

In the middle of these cogitations, apprehensions, and reflec- 
tions, it came into my thoughts one day, that all this might be 
a mere chimera of my own, and that this foot might be the print 
of my own foot, when I came on shore from my boat: this 
cheered me up a little too, and I began to persuade myself it 
was all a delusion ; that it was nothing else but my own foot ; 
and why might not I come that way from the boat, as well as I 
was going that way to the boat? Again, I considered also, that 
I could by no means tell for certain where I had trod, and where 
I had not ; and that if at last this was only the print of my own 
foot, I had played the part of those fools, who strive to make 
stories of spectres and apparitions, and then are themselves 
frighted at them more than anybody else. 

Now I began to take courage, and to peep abroad again ; for 
I had not stirred out of my castle for three days and nights, so 
that I began to starve for provision ; for I had little or nothing 
within doors, but some barley-cakes and water. Then I knew 
that my goats wanted to be milked too, which usually was my 
evening diversion; and the poor creatures were in great pain 
and inconvenience for want of it; and indeed it almost spoiled 
some of them, and almost dried up their milk. 

Heartening myself, therefore, with the belief, that this was 
nothing but the print of one of my own feet (and so I might be 
truly said to start at my own shadow), I began to go abroad 
again, and went to my country-house to milk my flock; but to 
see with what fear I went forward, how often I looked behind 
me, how I was ready, every now and then, to lay down my 
basket, and run for my life ; it would have made any one have 
thought I was haunted with an evil conscience, or that I had 
been lately most terribly frighted; and so indeed I had. 

However, as I went down thus two or three days, and having 
seen nothing, I began to be a little bolder, and to think there 
was really nothing in it but my own imagination ; but I could 
not persuade myself fully of this, till I should go down to the 
shore again, and see this print of a foot, and measure it by my 
own, and see if there was any similitude or fitness, that I might 
be assured it was my own foot. But when I came to the place 
first, it appeared evidently to me. that when I laid up my boat, 



1727-1760.] GAY. 375 

I could not possibly be on shore anywhere thereabouts. Se- 
condly, when I came to measure the mark with my own foot, 
I found my foot not so large by a great deal. Both these things 
filled my head with new imaginations, and gave me the vapors 
again to the highest degree ; so that I shook with cold, like one 
in an ague, and I went home again, filled with the belief, that 
some man or men had been on shore there ; or, in short, that 
the island was inhabited, and I might be surprised before I was 
aware ; and what course to take for my security, I knew not. 
O what ridiculous resolutions men take, when possessed with 
fear ! It deprives them of the use of those means which reason 
ofi"ers for their relief. 



JOHN GAY, 1688—1732. 

John Gay, descended from a respectable family in Devonshire, was born 
in 1688, the year of the " Glorious Revolution." When young he was put 
apprentice to a silk-mercer in London ; but having imbibed a taste for poetry 
and classical literature, his indentures were cheerfully cancelled by his mas- 
ter, and a poem, entitled "Rural Sports," which he soon published and 
dedicated to Pope, obtained the sincere and lasting friendship of that poet. 
By him Gay was introduced to that brilliant circle of wits, of which Pope 
was the centre, and of it he ever continued the favorite. In 1712 he was 
appointed secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth, which situation left him 
at full liberty to indulge his taste for elegant literature. Soon after, he pub- 
lished his " Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London," " a tine 
specimen," says Dr. Drake, "of that species of burlesque, in which elevated 
language is employed in the detail of trifling, mean, or ludicrous circum- 
stances." He then entered the walks of dramatic literature, but without 
any success, until, in 1727, he published his " Beggar's Opera," designed to 
ridicule the Italian opera, and to satirize the court. He offered it to Rich, 
the manager of Drury-Lane Theatre, and such was its great popularity, that 
it was humorously remarked that this opera had made Gay rich, and Rich 
gay. 

But the most finished productions of our poet, and those to which he will 
owe his reputation with posterity, are his "Fables," the finest in the lan- 
guage. They are written with great spirit and vivacity; the versification is 
generally smooth and flowing; the descriptions happy and appropriate, and 
the moral designed to be conveyed is, for the most part, impressive and in- 
structive. Besides these, he was the author of the "Fan," a mythological 
fiction ; of " Dione," a pastoral drama ; of " Achilles," an opera, and many 
songs and ballads. The publication of these various works placed him in 
easy circumstances, as to fortune; but no sooner was he released from pecu- 
niary anxiety, than his health began to decline ; and he was at length seized 



376 GAY. [george II. 

with an inflammatory disease, which carried him off in three days, and he 
expired on the 4th of December, 1732, in the forty-fourth year of his age. 
He was buried in Westminster Abbey, where a handsome monument was 
erected to his memory, for which Pope wrote an inscription. 

Few men were more beloved by those who intimately knew him, than 
Gay. His moral character was excellent, his temper peculiarly sweet and 
engaging, but he possessed a simplicity of manner and character which, 
though it endeared him to his friends, rendered him very unfit for the general 
business of life. The two first lines of the epitaph of Pope most truthfully 
characterize him : 

Of manners gentle, of affections mild; 
In wit, a man; simplicity, a child. 

THE BULL AND THE MASTIFF. 

Seek you to train your favorite boy 1 
Each caution, every care employ ; 
And, ere you venture to confide, 
Let his preceptor's heart be try'd: 
Weigh well his manners, life, and scope ; 
On these depends thy future hope. 

As on a time, in peaceful reign, 
A Bull enjoy'd the flowery plain, 
A Mastiff pass'd ; inflam'd. with ire, 
His eyeballs shot indignant fire. 
He foam'd, he ragVl with thirst of blood. 

Spurning the ground, the monarch stood, 
And roar'd aloud : " Suspend the fight ; 
In a whole skin go sleep to-night: 
Or tell me, ere the battle rage, 
What wrongs provoke thee to engage ? 
Is it ambition fires thy breast, 
Or avarice, that ne'er can restl 
From these alone unjustly springs 
The world-destroying wrath of kings." 

The surly Mastiff thus returns : 
" Within my bosom glory burns. 
Like heroes of eternal name, 
Whom poets sing, I fight for fame. 
The butcher's spirit-stirring mind 
To daily war my youth inclin'd ; 
He train'd me to heroic deed, 
Taught me to conquer, or to bleed." 

"Cvirs'd Dog," the Bull rep]y"d, "no more 
I w-onder at thy thirst of gore ; 
For thou (beneath a butcher train'd, 
Whose hands with cruelty are stain'd, 
His daily murders in thy view") 
Must, like thy tutor, blood pursue. 
Take, then, thy fate." With goring wound 
At once he lifts him from the ground: 



1727-1760.] GAY. 377 

Aloft the sprawling hero flies, 
Mangled he falls, he howls, and dies. 



THE POET AND THE ROSE. 

I hate the man who builds his name 
On ruins of another's fame. 
Thus prudes, by characters o'erthrown, 
Imagine that they raise their own. 
Thus scribblers, covetous of praise. 
Think slander can transplant the bays. 
Beauties and bards have equal pride. 
With both all rivals are decry'd. 
Who praises Lesbia's eyes and feature. 
Must call her sister awkward creature ; 
For the kind flattery's sure to charm. 
When we some other nymph disarm. 

As in the cool of early day 
A Poet sought the sweets of May, 
The garden's fragrant breath ascends, 
And every stalk with odor bends; 
A rose he pluck'd. he gaz'd, admir'd, 
Thus surging, as the Muse inspir'd: 
" Go, Rose, my Chloe's bosom grace ; 

How happy shall I prove. 
Might I supply that en^^'d place 

With never-fading love ! 
There, Phcenix-like, beneath her eye, 
Involved in fragrance, burn and die. 
Know, hapless Flower! that thou shalt find 

More fragrant Roses there ; 
I see thy withering head reclin'd 

With envy and despair ! 
One common fate we both must prove ; 
You die with em^, I with love." 

"Spare your comparisons, reply'd 
An angry Rose, who grew beside. 
Of all mankind you should not flout us ; 
What can a Poet do without us ? 
In every love-song Roses bloom ; 
We lend you color and perfume : 
Does it to Chloe's charms conduce, 
To found her praise on our abuse? 
Must we, to flatter her, be made 
To wither, envy, pine, and fade?" 

THE HARE AND MANY FRIENDS. 

Friendship, like love, is but a name, 
Unless to one you stint the flame. 
The child, whom many fathers share, 
Hath seldom known a father's care. 



378 GAY. [gEORGE II. 

'Tis thus in friendships ; who depend 
On manj^, rarely find a friend. 

A Hare wlio, in a civil way, 
Comply"d witli everything, hke Gay, 
Was known hy all the bestial train 
Who haunt the wood, or graze the plain ; 
Her care was never to offend; 
And every creature was her friend. 

As forth she went at early dawn. 
To taste the dew-besprinkled lawn, 
Behind she hears the hunter's cries, 
And from the deep-mouth'd thunder flies. 
She starts, she stops, she pants for breath; 
She hears the near advance of death; 
She doubles, to mislead tire hound, 
And measures back her mazy round; 
Till, fainting in the public way. 
Half-dead with fear, she gasping lay. 

What transport in her bosom grew, 
When first the Horse appear'd in view ! 

" Let me, says she, your back ascend. 
And owe my safety to a friend. 
You knoAV my feet betray my flight: 
To friendship every burden's light." 

The Horse reply'd, "Poor honest Puss, 
It grieves my heart to see thee thus : 
Be comforted, relief is near, 
For all your friends are in the rear." 

She next the stately Bull implor'd; 
And thus reply'd the mighty lord: 
" Since every beast alive can tell 
That I sincerely wish you well, 
I may, without off'ence, pretend 
To take the freedom of a friend. 
To leave you thus might seem unkind; 
But, see, the Goat is just behind." 

The Goat remark'd, "her pulse Vv^as high, 
Her languid head, her heavy eye : 
My back, says he, may do you harm ; 
The Sheep's at hand, and wool is warm." 

The sheep was feeble, and complain'd 
"His sides a load of wool sustained; 
Said, he was slow, confess'd his fears ; 
For hounds eat sheep as well as hares." 

She now the trotting calf address'd. 
To save from death a friend distress'd. 

" Shall I, says he, of tender age, 
In this important care engage? 
Older and abler pass'd you by; 
How strong are those ! how weak am I ! 
Should I presume to bear you hence, 
Those friends of mine may take offence. 



I 



1727-1760.] BOOTH. 379 

Excuse me, then ; you know my heart ; 
But dearest friends, alas ! must part. 
How shall we all lament! Adieu; 
For see the hounds are just in view." 



BARTON BOOTH, 1681—1733. 

Barton Booth, though known in his day chiefly as an actor, deserves a 
notice in this work for his very beautiful song, entitled, 

SWEET ARE THE CHARMS OF HER I LOVE. 

Sweet are the charms of her I love, 

More fragrant than the damask rose, 
Soft as the down of turtle-dove, 

Gentle as air when Zephyr blows, 
Refreshing as descending rains 
To sun-burnt climes, and thirsty plains. 

True as the needle to the pole, 

Or as the dial to the sun ; 
Constant as gliding waters roll, 

Whose swelling tides obey the moon,- 
From every other charmer free. 

My life and love shall follow thee. 

The lamb the flowery thyme devours, 

The dam the tender kid pursues; 
Sweet Philomel, in shady bowers 

Of verdant spring, her note renews ; 
All follow what they most admire. 
As I pursue my soul's desire. 

Nature must change her beauteous face, 

And vary as the seasons rise ; 
As winter to the spring gives place. 

Summer th' approach of autumn flies: 
No change on love the seasons bring, 
Love only knows perpetual spring. 

Devouring Time, with stealing pace. 

Makes lofty oaks and cedars bow; 
And marble towers, and gates of brass, 

In his rude march he levels low: 
But Time, destroying far and wide, 
Love from the soul can ne'er divide. 

Death only, with his cruel dart. 

The gentle godhead can remove; 
And drive him from the bleeding hears 

To mingle with the bless'd abovCj 



380 GROVE, [george n, 

Wh^e^ known to all his kindredjiain, 
He finds a kistrog rest fitcxn pain. 

Love, and his aster iaitj the soni. 

Twin-bom, fitHn heavrai together came : 

Love will the raiiTerse contiol. 

When dying seasons lose their name; 

IHTine abodes shall own his power 

When time and dea& shall be no more. 



HENRY GROVE, 1&33— 1738. 

Ks5:^T Ge-OTE, a "dissenting" clergyman of great literature arrd p:e v. 
was bom at Taonton, Someisetshire, 1683. He was early impressed by his 
parents with an ardent loTe for religion and morality, and at school and at 
^e academy' he acquired a taste for the elegant authors of Greece and Rome, 
which he cultivated throngh life with unwearied fondness and assidaity, and 
ii^di gaTe uncommon grace and beamy to his style. At the age of twenty- 
two he entered the ministry, for which he was eminently qualified by his 
piety and learning ; and he became a Tery pc^olar preadier. On the decease 
of Mr. Warren, the preceptor of the academy at Taunton. Mr Grove was 
elected to fill his place, and his first publication was an essay drawn cp for 
the use of his piqiils, entitled, " The Regulation of Diversions,'' designed to 
call o^the attention of youth from the too eager pursuit of pleasure, and to 
infuse into them a thirst for the acquis; ion of knowledge and virtue.^ His 
next writings for the public were contributions for the Spectator. Nora bars 
588, 601, 626, and 635 (the last number) are from his pen. He also pub- 
Itshed many treatises of a strictly religious character. Of these, " A Dis- 
course on Secret Prayer," " The Evidence of our Saviour's Resurrection 
Considered." - Sc-e Tb:-.:i:::5 ::i;-:-i:- :i:e Proof of a Future S:a:e 



:d Cambridge ITniversities. 
:d me to stead under every 
e;; ii; :':ef 'I'zess to me 

::-r5 ::.:-- :: iniss. and 
7. 7.Z -.i:: Jr. r i-ezk of it 
f ; : 1 f r i f :. 5 ; ; c erseding 
■ ;:.:"je;- t:::::~o? reli- 



PMiosophj.-"' 



1727-1760.] GROVE. 381 

from Reason," and "Discourses on the Lord's Supper," and on ''Saving 
Faith," are best known. 

" In all his writings, Mr. Grove, taking the Scriptures solely for his guide, 
adhered fo the result of his own inquiries; his mind was biased by no sys- 
tems or creeds, and his theology, therefore, was purely practical, and, as far 
as the fallibility of men will allow in judging of the tezt, perfectly conforma- 
ble to the tenor of the Gospel."^ After living a life of great benevolence 
and practical piety, he died on the ■27th of February, 1733, in the fifty-fifth 
year of his age. The following extracts from one of his letters to a friend, 
draw a true picture of his own character, in his directions for 



THE TRUE ART OF ENJOYING LIFE. 

It will not be altogether out of character, if I write down a 
few reflections on the art of improving human life, so as to pass 
it in peace and tranquillity, and make it yield the noblest plea- 
sures it is capable of affording us. The first rule, and in a 
manner comprehensive of all the rest, is always to consider 
human life in its connection, as a state of trial, with an ever- 
lastinof existence. How does this single thought at once raise 
and sink the value of every thing under the sun? sink it as a 
part of our worldly portion : raise it as a means and opportunity 
of promoting the glory of the great author of all good, and the 
happiness, present and future, of our fellow-creatures as well as 
our own ? — In the next place, we are to lay down this for a 
certain maxim, and constantly attend to it, that our happiness 
must arise from our own temper and actions, not immediately 
from any external circumstances. These, at best, are only con- 
siderable, as they supply a larger field to the exercise of our 
virtue, and more leisure for the improvements and entertain- 
ments of the mind: whereas, the chief delights of a reasonable 
being, must result from its own operations, and reflections upon 
them as consonant to its nature, and the order it holds in the 
universe. How do I feel myself within? Am I in my natural 
state ? Do I put my faculties to their right use? — To require 
less from others than is commonly done, in order to be pleased, 
and to be more studious to please them, not from a meanness 
of spirit, not from artful views, but from an unaffected bene- 
volence, is another rule of greater importance than is easily 
imagined ; and more elTectually reaches all that is aimed at by 
self-love, without designing it. — To this add, that though we 
should be impartial, yet not severe in the judgment we^ pass, 
and the demands we make upon ourselves ; watchful against 

' Drake's Essays, vol. iii. p. 210. 



382 GROVE. [george II. 

the infirmities and errors too incident to human nature, but not 
supposing that we shall be entirely free from them, nor afflicting 
ourselves beyond measure to find that Ave are not. Such an 
over-strained severity breaks the force of the mind, and hinders 
its progress towards perfection. In the choice of conditions, 
or making any steps in life, it is a dictate of wisdom to prefer 
reality to appearance, and to follow Providence as our guide. — 
To be more indifierent to life, and all things in it, which the 
less we value the more we shall enjoy. — And, lastly, to con- 
sider that the happiness of the present state consists more in 
repose than pleasure; and in those pleasures that are pure and 
calm (which are likewise the most lasting) rather than in those 
which violently agitate the passions. Happy are we, when our 
pleasures flow from the regularity of our passions, an even 
course of piety and goodness, an humble confidence in the 
mercy of God, and from the hope of immortality ! not to be 
contented without a perpetual succession of other pleasures 
besides these, is the way never to know contentment. 

In No. 626 of the Spectator, our author has given us, in a most ingenious 
and pleasing manner, and in a style of much elegance, an essay 



It may not be a useless inquiry how far the love of novelty 
is the unavoidable growth of nature, and in what respects it is 
peculiarly adapted to the present state. To me it seems im- 
possible that a reasonable creature should rest absolutely satis- 
fied in any acquisitions whatever, without endeavoring further, 
for, after its highest improvements, the mind hath an idea of an 
infinity of things still behind, worth knowing, to the knowledge 
of which, therefore, it cannot be indifi'erent; as by climbing up 
a hill in the midst of a wide plain a man hath his prospects 
enlarged, and, together with that, the bounds of his desires. 
Upon this account, I cannot think he detracts from the state of 
the blessed, who conceives them to be perpetually employed 
in fresh searches into nature, and, to eternity, advancing into 
the fathomless depths of the divine perfections. In this thought 
there is nothing but what doth honor to these glorified spirits ; 
provided still it be remembered, that their desire of more, pro- 
ceeds not from their disrelishing what they possess ; and the 
pleasure of a new enjoyment is not with them measured by its 

' " One of the finest pieces in the English language, is the paper on Novelty ; 
yet we do not hear it talked of.'- — Dr. Johnson. 



1727-1760.] GROVE. 383 

novelty (which is a thing merely foreign and accidental), but 
by its real intrinsic value. After an acquaintance of many 
thousand years with the works of God, the beauty and magni- 
ficence of the creation fill them with the same pleasing wonder 
and profound awe which Adam felt himself seized with as he 
first opened his eyes upon this glorious scene. Truth capti- 
vates with unborrowed charms, and whatever hath once given 
satisfaction Avill always do it. In all w-hich they have mani- 
festly the advantage of us, who are so much governed by sickly 
and changeable appetites, that we can with the greatest coldness 
behold the stupendous displays of Omnipotence, and be in 
transports at the puny essays of human skill; throw aside 
speculations of the sublimest nature and vastest importance into 
some obscure corner of the mind, to make room for new no- 
tions of no consequence at all; are even tired of health, because 
not enlivened with alternate pain ; and prefer the first reading 
of an indifferent author to the second or third perusal of one 
whose merit and reputation are established. 

Our being thus formed serves many useful purposes in the 
present state. It contributes not a little to the advancement of 
learning; for, as Cicero takes notice, that which makes men 
willing to undergo the fatigues of philosophical disquisitions, is 
not so much the greatness of objects as their novelty. It is 
with knowledge as with wealth, the pleasure of which lies 
more in making endless additions than in taking a review of our 
old store. There are some inconveniences that follow this 
temper, if not guarded against, particularly this, that, through 
too great an eagerness of something new, we are many times 
impatient of staying long enough upon a question that requires 
some time to resolve it; or, which is worse, persuade ourselves 
that we are masters of the subject before we are so, only to be 
at the liberty of gomg upon a fresh scent: in Mr. Locke's 
words, " We see a little, presume a good deal, and so jump to 
the conclusion." 

A farther advantage of our inclination for novelty, as at pre- 
sent circumstantiated, is, that it annihilates all the boasted dis- 
tinctions among mankind. Look not up with envy to those 
above thee I Sounding titles, stately buildings, fine gardens, 
gilded chariots, rich equipages, what are they ? They dazzle 
every one but the possessor ; to him that is accustomed to them 
they are cheap and regardless things ; they supply him not with 
brighter images or more sublime satisfactions, than the plain 
man may have whose small estate will just enable him to sup- 
port the charge of a simple, unencumbered life. lie enters 



384 TICKELL. [gEORGE II. 

heedless into his rooms of state, as you or I do under our poor 
sheds. The noble paintings and cosUy furniture are lost on 
him; he sees them not; as how can it be otherwise, when by 
custom a fabric infinitely more grand and finished, that of the 
universe, stands unobserved by the inhabitants, and the ever- 
lasting lamps of heaven are lighted up in vain, for any notice 
that mortals take of them ? Thanks to indulgent nature, which 
not only placed her children originally upon a level, but still, 
by the strength of this principle, in a great measure preserves 
it, in spite of all the care of man to introduce artificial dis- 
tinctions. 

To add no more — is not this fondness for novelty, which 
makes us out of conceit with all we already have, a convincing 
proof of a future state ? Either man was made in vain, or this 
is not the only world he was made for: for there cannot be a 
greater instance of vanity than that to wiiich man is liable, to 
be deluded from the cradle to the grave with fleeting shadows of 
happiness. His pleasures, and those not considerable neither, 
die in the possession, and fresh enjoyments do not rise fast 
enough to fill up half his life with satisfaction. "When I see 
persons sick of themselves any longer than they are called 
away by something that is of force to chain down the present 
thought: when I see them hurry from country to town, and 
then from the town back again into the country, continually 
shifting postures, and placing life in all the difi'erent lights they 
can think of: "Surely," say I to myself, "life is vain, and the 
man, beyond expression, stupid or prejudiced, who from the 
vanity of life cannot gather that he is designed for immor- 
tality." 



THOMAS TICKELL, 16S6— 1740. 

Thomas Ticeell, the bosom friend of Addison, was born in Bridekirk. 
near Carlisle, in Cumberland, in 16S6. At the usual age he entered Oxford 
University, where he devoted himself to his studies with great industry. He 
was early introduced to Addison and gained his friendship, which was never 
for a moment violated. Addison, it is said, had the afiection of a father for 
Tickell, who, in return, loved and venerated that great man with a warmth 
of zeal which no filial affection could exceed. In consequence of this con- 
nection he made several contributions to the Spectator and Guardian, though 
his papers cannot all now be identified. While negotiations were on foot 
that preceded the peace of Utrecht,' he published his poem entitled "The 

' The treaty of Utrecht was signed 1713. 



1727-1760.] TiCKELL. 385 

Prospect of Peace." Though it has not much merit as a poem, it presents 
some noble thoughts on the general subject of peace, and the duty of nations 
to cultivate it among each other, that, if practised, would make the world 
much better and happier. In 1717, when Addison was made secretary of 
state, he advanced his friend Tickell to the post of under secretary, a situa- 
tion which he filled with equal advantage to himself and his patron. 

The decease of Addison, 1719, was severely felt and most sincerely 
lamented by Tickell. To the collected works of his great patron, who had 
on his death-bed left him the charge of publishing them, he prefixed an 
" Elegy" in memory of their author, "to whose beauty and pathos," says 
Dr. Drake, " no language can do justice." It is this, indeed, on which his 
fame as a writer chiefly rests ; though his verses on the " Cato" of Addison, 
and his ballad of " Colin and Lucy" have much merit. His promotion and 
prosperity ceased not with the death of Addison. In 1725 he was created 
secretary to the lords justices of Ireland, a situation of dignity and profit, 
which he held till his death, which took place on the 23d of April, 1740. 



ON THE DEATH OF ADDISON/ 

If, dumb too long, the drooping Muse hath stay'd, 

And left her debt to Addison unpaid, 

Blame not her silence, Warwick, but bemoan, 

And judge, oh judge, my bosom by your own. 

What mourner ever felt poetic fires ! 

Slow comes the verse that real woe inspires : 

Grief unaffected suits but ill with art, 

Or flowing numbers with a bleeding heart. 

Can I forget the dismal night that gave 
My soul's best part forever to the grave ! 
How silent did his old companions tread, 
By midnight lamps, the mansions of the dead, 
Through breathing statues, then unheeded things, 
Through rows of warriors, and through walks of kings! 
What awe did the slow solemn knell inspire ; 
The peahng organ, and the pausing choir ; 
The duties by the lawn-rob'd prelate pay'd; 
And the last words, that dust to dust convey'd! 
While speechless o'er thy closing grave we bend, 
Accept these tears, thou dear departed friend. 
Oh, gone forever! take this long adieu; 
And sleep in peace, next thy lov'd Montague. 
To strew fresh laurels, let the task be mine, 
A frequent pilgrim, at thy sacred shrine ; 
Mine with true sighs thy absence to bemoan, 
And grave with faithful epitaphs thy stone. 
If e'er from me thy lov'd memorial part, 
May shame afflict this alienated heart ; 

* This was addressed to the Earl of Warwick, Addison's step-son. 
25 



386 



TICKELL. [«=0'^^= " 

Of thee forgetful if I form a song, 
My lyre be broken, and untun'd my tongue, 
My grief be doubled from thy image free, 
And mirth a torment, unchastis'd by thee. 

Oft let me range the gloomy aisles alone, 
Sad luxury! to vulgar minds unknown, 
tkJ-r the walls where speaking marbles show 
Wha" worthies form the Imllow'd mouM below ; 
Proud names, who once the reins of empire held; 
In arms who tri.nnphd; or in «r^. ^^,*^^';f ^ 
Chiefs, gracd with scars, and prodigal of blooU, 
Stern Tiatriots, who for sacred freedom stood ; 
Just men, by whom impartial laws were given; 
And sainls who taught, and led, the way to heaven; 
Neer to these chambers, where the mighty rest, 
Since their foundation, came a nobler guest ; 
Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss convey d 
A fairer spirit or more welcome shade. 

In what new region, to the J"^^^f^^^'f j''. , • ,. 
What new employments please th' unlyxly d mmd, 
A winge<l Virtue, through th' etherial sky, 
From world to world unweary d does he fly . 
Or curious trace the long laborious maze 
Of heavens decrees, where wondering angels gaze? 
Does he delight to hear bold seraphs tell 
How Mifhael battl'd, and the dragon fell; 
Or, mix'd with milder cherubim, to glow 
In hymns of love, not ill essay ^l '>^:lo^\-. 
Or dost thou warn poor mortals lett behmd, 
A task well-suited to thy gentle muun 
Oh! if sometimes thy spotless form descend; 
To me, thy aid, thou guardian Sf"^"^/^'^^, ^^, 
When rage misguides me, or when fear alarm.. 
When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms, 
la silent whisperings purer thoughts impart, 
And turn from ill, a frail and feeble heart; 
Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before 
Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more. 

Tlmt awful Ibrm, which, so the heavens decree, 
Must still be lov-d and still deplor d by me ; 
In nightly visions seldom fails to rise, 
Or, rous-d by fancy, meets my wakmg eyes. 
If business calls, or crowded courts invite, 
Th' unblemish-d statesman seems to strike my sight, 
If in the stage I seek to soothe my care, 
I meet his soul vvhich breathes in Cato' there ; 
If pensive to the rural shades I rove. 
His shape o'ertakes me in the lonely grove ; 
'Twas there of just and good he reason'd strong, 
Clear'd some great truth, or rais'd some serious song: 



Addison's tragedy of «• Cato." 



1727-1760.] BENTLEY. 387 

There patient show'd us the wise course to steer, 
A candid censor, and a friend severe ; 
There taught us how to live; and (oh! too high 
The price for knowledge) taught us how to die. 



RICHARD BENTLEY, 1662—1742. 

Richard Bentlet, one of the most learned men, and perhaps the greatest 
classical scholar England has produced, was the son of a farmer near Wake- 
field, in Yorkshire, and was born in 1662. He was educated at Cambridge, 
and became chaplain to Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester. In 1692 he was 
appointed to the lectureship instituted by Boyle, for the defence of the 
Christian religion, and he delivered a series of very able discourses against 
atheism, which were highly popular. His next public appearance was in the 
famous controversy with the Hon. Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery, relative 
to the genuineness of the Greek Epistles of Phalaris." Most of the wits and 
scholars of that period joined with Boyle against Bentley; but he triumph- 
antly established the position that the epistles are spurious. Though pro- 
fessedly a controversial work, it embodies a mass of accurate information 
relative to historical facts, antiquities, chronology, and philology, such as, 
we may safely say, has rarely, if ever, been collected in the same space, and 
shows how thoroughly digested and familiar was the vast stock of reading 
which Bentley possessed. At the end of the "Dissertation on Phalaris," 
Bentley denies the genuineness of the " Fables" which bear ^sop's name. 

It would be impossible, in this mere sketch of his life,^ to enumerate all his 
subsequent works. They were mostly of a classical character, and from the 
great learning and research which they displayed, established his reputation 
not in England only, but on the continent, as the first scholar of his age. In 
one labor, however, he signally failed: it was in his edition of the " Paradise 
Lost." Assuming that, from the blindness of Milton, and consequently 
from the necessity of his dictating his thoughts to others, many verbal errors 
must have been made in transcribing, he undertook to make "emendations'' 
without number, in that immortal work. It proved a most signal failure, 
and showed that, however learned he was in classic lore, he was destitute 
of true poetic taste and feeling, and could not enter into the lofty conceptions 
and subhme flights of the great English bard. One of his "emendations" 
will suffice here. The sublime line, 

" No light, but rather darkness visible," 

Bentley renders, 

"No light, but rather a transpicuous gloom;" 

^ See this controversy spoken of on page 298. 

- Read, Dr. Monk's Life of Bentley, a most interesting as well as learned 
piece of biography. 



388 BENTLEY. [gEORGE II. 

thus verifying his favorite maxim, that no man was ever H-ritten out of his 
reputation except by himself. 

After a Hfe of great hterary labor, and enjoying some of the highest honors 
in the church, this distinguished scholar died on the 14th of July, 1742. 



AUTHORITY OF REASON IN RELIGION. 

We profess ourselves as much concerned, and as truly as 
[the deists] themselves are, for the use and authority of reason 
in controversies of faith. We look upon ri^ht reason as the 
native lamp of the soul, placed and kindled there by our Crea- 
tor, to conduct us in the whole course of our judgments and 
actions. True reason, like its divine Author, never is itself 
deceived, nor ever deceives any man. Even revelation itself is 
not shy nor unwillincr to ascribe its own first credit and funda- 
mental authority to the test and testimony of reason. Sound 
reason is the touchstone to distinguish that pure and genuine 
gold from baser metals; revelation truly divine, from imposture 
and enthusiasm : so that the Christian religion is so far from 
declining or fearing the strictest trials of reason, that it every- 
where appeals to it; is defended and supported by it; and, in- 
deed, cannot continue, in the apostle's description, "pure and 
undefiled" without it. It is the benefit of reason alone, under 
the Providence and Spirit of God, that we ourselves are at this 
day a reformed orthodox church : that we departed from the 
errors of popery, and that we knew, too, where to stop; neither 
running into the extravagances of fanaticism, nor sliding into 
the intUirerency of libertinism. Whatsoever, therefore, is in- 
consistent with natural reason, can never be justly imposed as 
an article of faith. That the same body is in many places at 
once; that plain bread is not bread; such things, though they be 
said with never so much pomp and claim to infallibility, we 
have still greater authority to reject them, as being contrary to 
common sense and our natural faculties; as subverting the 
foundations of all faith, even the grounds of their own credit, 
and all the principles of civil life. 

So far are we from contending with our adversaries about the 
dignity and authority of reason; but then we difi'er with them 
about the exercise of it, and the extent of its province. For the 
deists there stop, and set bounds to their faith, where reason, 
their only guide, does not lead the way further, and walk along 
before them. We, on the contrary, as Moses was shown by 
divine power a true sight of the promised land, though himself 
could not pass over to it, so we think reason may receive from 



1727-1760.] soMERviLLE. 389 

revelation some further discoveries and new prospects of things, 
and be fully convinced of the reality of them ; though itself can- 
not pass on, nor travel those regions ; cannot penetrate the fund 
of those truths, nor advance to the utmost bounds of them. For 
there is certainly a wide difference between what is contrary 
to reason, and what is superior to it, and out of its reach. 



WILLIAM SOMERVILLE, 1692—1742. 

This ardent lover and eulogist of field-sports, was born in 1692, and was 
educated at Oxford. After leaving the University, he settled upon his patri- 
monial estate in Warvi'ickshire, and occupied his time partly with the duties 
of a justice of the peace, partly with the active pleasures of the sportsman, 
and partly with the cultivation of his poetical talents. Hospitable, convivial, 
and careless of economy, he became involved in debt, and in the latter part 
of his life, according to the account of his friend Shenstone, the poet, ' ' drank 
himself into pains of the body, in order to get rid of the pains of the mind." 
Thus, most lamentably, was his misery completed, and his end accelerated ; 
and he died in 1742, in the fiftieth year of his age. 

Somerville is best known by his poem, entitled the " Chase," which still 
has considerable popularity. It is written in blank verse, tolerably harmo- 
nious, and his descriptions, always accurate from his own practical know- 
ledge of his subject, are frequently vivid and beautiful. He has also written 
another rural poem, called " Field- Sports," which describes the amusement 
of hawking ; " Hobbinol, or Rural Games," a mock heroic ; and many pieces 
of a miscellaneous character. Of the latter, the lines to Addison show much 
good feeling, and just appreciation of the character of that great and good 
man. 

BEGINNING OF A FOX HUNT. 

Ere yet the morning peep, 
Or stars retire from the first blush of day, 
With thy far-echoing voice alarm thy pack, 
And rouse thy bold compeers. Then to the copse, 
Thick with entangling grass, or prickly furze, 
With silence lead thy many-color 'd hounds, 
In all their beauty's pride. See ! how they range 
Dispers'd, how busily this way, and that, 
They cross, examining with curious nose 
Each likely haunt. Hark ! on the drag I hear 
Their doulotful notes, preluding to a cry 
More nobly full, and swell'd with every mouth. 
As straggling armies, at the trumpet's voice, 
Press to their standard ; hither all repair, 
And hurry through the woods; with hasty step 



390 SOMERVILLE. [gEORGE II. 

Rustling, and full of hope ; now driven on heaps 

They push, they strive; while from his kennel sneaks 

The conscious villain. See ! he skulks along, 

Sleek at the shepherds cost, and plump with meals 

Purloin'd. So thrive the wicked here below. 

Though high his brush lie bear, though tipt witli white 

It gayly shine; yet ere the sun decline! 

Recal the shades of night, the pamper"d rogue 

Shall rue his fate revers'd ; and at his heels 

Behold the just avenger, swift to seize 

His forfeit head, and thirsting for his blood. 

And now 
In vain each earth he tries, the doors are barr'd 
Impregnable, nor is the covert safe; 
He pants for purer air. Hark ! what loud shouts 
Re-echo through the groves! he breaks away. 
Shrill horns proclaim his flight. Each straggling hound 
Strains o'er the lawn to reach the (hstant pack. 
'Tis triumph all and joy. Now, my brave youths, 
Now give a loose to the clean generous steed; 
Flourish the M-hip, nor spare the galling spur; 
But, in the madness of delight, forget 
Your fears. Far o"cr the rocky hills we range 
And dangerous our course; but in the brave 
True courage never fails. In vain the stream 
111 foaming eddies whirls; in vain the ditch 
Wide-gaping threatens death. The craggy steep, 
"Where tlie poor dizzy shepherd crawls wiili care, 
And clings to every twig, gives us no pain; 
But down we sweep, as stoops the falcon bold 
To pounce his prey. Then up th' opponent hill, 
By the swift motion slung, we mount aloft: 
So ships in winter-seas now sliding sink 
Adown the steepy wave, then tossd on high 
Ride on the billows, and defy the storm. 



LINES ADDRESSED TO ADDISOX. 

Great bard! how shall my \\'orthless Muse aspire 
To reach your praise, without your sacred fire 1 
When panting virtue her last efforts made, 
You brought your Clio' to the virgin's aid ; 
Presumptuous Folly blushVl, and Vice withdrew, 
To vengeance yielding her abandon'd crew. 
'Tis true, confederate wits their forces join; 
Parnassus labors in the work divine : 
Yet these we read with too impatient eyes. 
And hunt for you through every dark disguise : 

i Alluding to the initials, c l i o, with which Addison signed all his papers 
in the Spectator. 



1727-1760.] SWIFT. 391 

In vain your modesty that name conceals, • 

Which every thought, which every word, reveals ; 

With like success bright Beauty's Goddess tries 

To veil immortal charms from mortal eyes ; 

Her graceful port, and her celestial mien. 

To her brave son betray the Cyprian queen ; 

Odours divine perfume her rosy breast. 

She glides along the plain in majesty confess'd. 

Hard was the task, and worthy your great mind, 

To please at once, and to reform mankind : 

Yet, when you write, Truth charms with such address, 

Pleads Virtue's cause with such becoming grace, 

His own fond heart the guilty wretch betrays. 

He yields delighted, and convinc'd obeys : 

You touch our follies with so nice a skill, 

Nature and habit prompt in vain to ill. 

Nor can it lessen the Spectator's praise, 

That from your friendly hand he wears the bays ; 

His great design all ages shall commend. 

But more his happy choice in such a friend. 

So the fair queen of night the world relieves, ^ 

Nor at the sun's superior honor grieves, > 

Proud to reflect the glories she receives. ) 

Contending nations ancient Homer claim, 
And Mantua glories in her Maro's name ; 
Our happier soil the prize shall yield to none, 
Ardenna's groves shall boast an Addison. 
Ye sylvan powers, and all ye rural gods. 
That guard these peaceful shades, and blest abodes, 
For your new guest your choicest gifts prepare. 
Exceed his wishes, and prevent his prayer,- 
Grant him, propitious, freedom, health, and peace, 
And as his virtues, let his stores increase. 
His lavish hand no deity shall mourn, 
The pious bard shall make a just return: 
In lasting verse eternal altars raise, 
And over-pay your bounty with his praise. 



JONATHAN SWIFT, 1667—1745. 

Of the varied life of this eccentric divine, so numerous and able have 
been the details, that had we room to enter into the consideration of it at 
length, it would be quite an unnecessary work. We will therefore give but 
a mere sketch of it, referring the reader for more full biographies, to the 
works mentioned below.^ 

"■ Hawkesworth, Sheridan and Nichols have each prefixed a life of Swift 
to their edition of his works. But the best edition is that of Sir Walter Scott, 
with life, 19 vols. 8vo,, of which a second edition has been published. Read 



392 SWIFT. [george II. 

He was born in Dublin, in 16G7, and was educated at Dublin University. 
At the age of twenty-one he obtained ihe patronage of Sir William Temple, 
under whose roof, at Moor Park, in Surrey, he resided as an amanuensis 
and a companion, until the death of his patron in 1698. Here he wrote his 
celebrated treatise, entitled " The Battle of the Books," against Bentley ; 
and while here he " took orders in the church." Upon the death of Tem- 
ple, he was invited by the Earl of Berkeley to Ireland, and after many dis- 
appointments he obtained the living of Laracor,' where, in 1704, he published, 
anonymously, that remarkable work "The Tale of a Tub." It was 
designed as a burlesque and satire upon the disputes among the Papists, 
Episcopalians and Presbyterians, and for keenness and humor it has, per- 
haps, never been equalled. In 1713 he was rewarded with the Deanery of 
St, Patrick's, in Dublin ; but the return of the Whig party into power, on 
the accession of the House of Hanover, destroyed all his hopes of further 
preferment. For some years after he was employed almost entirely in poli- 
tical and occasional writings, full of virulence and bitterness against many of 
the men and things of his age, and which are now but little read. 2 In 1724 
he became almost an object of idolatry to the Irish by publishing a series of 
letters under the feigned name of M. B. Drapier, against one William Wood. 
This Wood had obtained a patent for coining half- pence for the use of Ire- 
land, to the enormous amount of XUO.OOO, and Swift, in his "Drapier's 
Letters," exposed the fraud, and the ruinous consequences to the nation, 
with such power of reason, and sarcasm, and invective, that the patent was 
annulled, and the half-pence withdrawn by the government. The following 
short extract will give an idea of the style and humor of these " Letters." 

also, a life of the same, in the 3d vol. of " Drake's Essays;" another in 
" Johnson's Lives," and a very able article in the 27th vol. of the Edinburgh 
Review. 

' In the county of Meath, north-west of Dublin. While here, he appointed 
the reading of prayers every Wednesday and Friday. Upon the first Wednes- 
day, after the bell had ceased ringing for some time, finding that the congre- 
gation consisted only of himself and his clerk, Roger, he began: "Dearly 
beloved Roger, the Scripture moveth you and me in sundry places," &c., and 
then proceeded regularly through the whole service. 

^ In the earlier part of his life Swift acted with the Whigs ; but he after- 
wards became a Tory, and was the friend of Pope, Bolingbroke, and other wits 
of that party. According to Hnllam, in his " Constitutional History of Great 
Britain," the difference between these parties in England consists in this, that 
while the Tory " never ventures to look beyond the constitution, and holds it 
impossible to depart from it," or, as we might say in our country, sticks to 
what are incorrectly called the " compromises" of the constitution, the Whig 
" considers it as subject to modification when it ceases to answer the great 
end of all government — the good of the whole." " The Whig," continues 
Hallam, " insisting on the liberty and rights of the human race, has a natural 
desire for political amelioration; the Tory, a marked aversion for it. In a 
word, the principle of the one is conservation; that of the other, ameliora- 
tion," To which of the three parties in our own country, the " Whig," the 
« Democratic," or the " Liberty," this character of the English Whigs, as 
given by Hallam, is most applicable, let the intelligent and inquiring reader 
decide. 



1727-1760.] SWIFT. 393 

I am very sensible that such a work as I have undertaken, 
might have worthily employed a much better pen : but when a 
house is attempted to be robbed, it often happens that the 
weakest in the family runs first to stop the door. All the as- 
sistance I had were some informations from an eminent person, 
whereof I am afraid I have spoiled a few, by endeavoring to 
make them of a piece with my own productions; and the rest 
I was not able to manage. I was in the case of David, who 
could not move in the armor of Saul, and therefore I rather 
chose to attack this uncircumcised Philistine (Wood I mean) 
with a sling and a stone. And I may say for Wood's honor, 
as well as my own, that he resembles Goliah in many circum- 
stances very applicable to the present purpose : for Goliah had 
a helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with a 
coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand 
shekels of brass ; and he had greaves of brass upon his legs, 
and a target of brass between his shoulders. In short he was, 
like Mr. Wood, all over brass, and he defied the armies of the 
living God. — Goliah's conditions of combat were likewise the 
same with these of Wood: if he prevail against us, then shall 
ive be his servants. But if it happens that I prevail over him, 
I renounce the other part of the condition ; he shall never be a 
servant of mine ; for I do not think him fit to be trusted in any 
honest man's shop. 

In 1726 appeared the most perfect of the larger compositions of Swift, 
and that by which he will probably be longest remembered — " Gulliver's 
Travels." It is a production entirely unique in English literature. Its 
main design is, imder the form of fictitious travels, to satirize mankind and 
the institutions of civilized countries ; but the scenes and nations which it 
describes are so wonderful and amusing, that the book is as great a favorite 
with children, as with those misanthropic spirits who dehght in contemplat- 
ing the imperfections of human nature. In the latter part of his life, he pub- 
lished another burlesque on the social world, entitled "Polite Conversation," 
being an almost exact representation of the unpremeditated talk of ordinary 
persons. A still more ludicrous and satirical work appeared after his death, 
under the title of " Directions to Servants." His most important political 
tracts were "The Conduct of the Allies," "The Pubhc Spirit of the 
Whigs," and "A History of the Four last Years of Queen Anne." 

In 1736 Swift was seized with a violent fit of giddiness, while writing a 
satirical poem called the "Legion Club," which he never finished. From 
that time he grew worse and worse, till, in 1741, his friends found his pas- 
sions so violent and ungovernable, his memory so decayed, and his reason 
so depraved, that they were obhged to keep all strangers from him. In 
1742, after a week of indescribable bodily suffering, he sank into a state of 



I 



394 SWIFT. [george II. 

quiet idiocy, in which he continued till the 19th of October, 1745, when he 
gently breathed his last. 

As a writer, the prose works of Swifc are among the best specimens we 
possess of a thorough English style. " He knew," says Dr. Blair, " be- 
yond almost any man, the purity, the e.xtent, the precision of the English 
language ; and, therefore, to such as wish to attain a pure and correct style, 
he is one of the most useful models. But we must not look for much orna- 
ment and grace in his language. Plis haughty and morose genius made him 
despise any embellishment of this kind as beneath his dignity. He delivers 
his sentiments in a plain, downright, positive manner, like one who is sure 
he is in the right ; and is very indifferent whether you are pleased or not. 
His sentences are commonly negligently arranged; distinctly enough as to 
sense, but without any regard to smoothness of sound ; often without much 
regard to compactness or elegance." The following selections are given as 
specimens of his best style. 



COUNTRY HOSPITALITY. 

Those inferior duties of life, which the French call/e.s pefifes 
morales, or the smaller morals, are with us distinguished by 
the name of good manners or breeding. This I look upon, in 
the general notion of it, to be a sort of artificial good sense, 
adapted to the meanest capacities, and introduced to make 
mankind easy in their commerce with each other. Low and 
little understandings, without some rules of this kind, would be 
perpetually w^andering into a thousand indecencies and irregu- 
larities in behavior; and in their ordinary conversation, fall into 
the same boisterous familiarities that one observes among them 
where intemperance has quite taken away the use of their 
reason. In other instances it is odd to consider, that for want 
of common discretion, the very end of good breeding is wholly 
perverted; and civility, intended to make us easy, is employed 
in laying chains and fetters upon us, in debarring us of our 
wishes, and in crossing our most reasonable desires and incli- 
nations. 

This abuse reigns chiefly in the country, as I found to my 
vexation when I was last there, in a visit I made to a neighbor 
about two miles from my cousin. As soon as I entered the 
parlor, they put me into the great chair that stood close by a 
huge fire, and kept me there by force until I was almost stifled. 
Then a boy came in a great hurry to pull ofl' my boots, which 
I in vain opposed, -urging that I must return soon after dinner. 
In the mean time, the good lady whispered her eldest daughter, 
and slipped a key into her hand ; the girl returned instantly 
with a beer-glass half full of aqua mirabilis and syrup of gilli- 



1727-1760.] SWIFT. 395 

flowers. I took as much as I had a mind for, but madam vowed 
I should drink it off; for she was sure it would do me good after 
coming out of the cold air; and I was forced to obey, which 
absolutely took away my stomach. When dinner came in, I 
had a mind to sit at a distance from the fire; but they told me it 
was as much as my life was worth, and sat me with my back 
just against it. Although my appetite was quite gone, I was 
resolved to force down as much as I could, and desired the leg 
of a pullet. " Indeed, Mr. Bickerstaff," says the lady, " you 
must eat a wing, to oblige me;" and so put a couple upon my 
plate. I was persecuted at this rate during the whole meal: as 
often as I called for small beer, the master tipped the wink, and 
the servant brought me a brimmer of October. 

Some lime after dinner, I ordered my cousin's man, who 
came with me, to get ready the horses; but it was resolved I 
should not stir that night; and when J seemed pretty much 
bent upon going, they ordered the stable door to be locked, and 
the children hid my cloak and boots. The next question was, 
What I would have for supper? I said, I never eat any thing 
at night; but was at last, in my own defence, obliged to name 
the first thing that came into my head. After three hours, 
spent chiefly in apologies for my entertainment, insmuating to 
me, " That this was the worst time of the year for provisions ; 
that they were at a great distance from any market ; that they 
were afraid I should be starved; and that they knew they kept 
me to my loss;" the lady went, and left me to her husband; 
for they took special care I should never be alone. As soon 
as her back was turned, the little misses ran backward and for- 
ward every moment, and constantly as they came in, or went 
out, made a courtesy directly at me, which, in good manners, 
I was forced to return with a bow, and " your humble servant, 
pretty miss." Exactly at eight, the mother came up, and dis- 
covered, by the redness of her face, that supper was not far ofl\ 
It was twice as large as the dinner, and my persecution doubled 
in proportion. I desired at my usual hour to go to my repose, 
and was conducted to my chamber by the gentleman, his lady, 
and the whole train of children. They importuned me to drink 
something before I went to bed ; and, upon ray refusing, at last 
left a bottle of stingo, as they called it, for fear I should wake 
and be thirsty in the night. 

I was forced in the morning to rise and dress myself in the 
dark, because they would not suffer my kinsman's servant to 
disturb me at the hour I desired to be called. I was now re- 
solved to break through all measures, to get away; and, after 



396 SWIFT. [OEORGE II. 

sitting down to a monstrous breakfast of cold beef, mutton, 
neat's tongues, venison pasty, and stale beer, took leave of the 
family. But the gentleman would needs see me part of the 
way, and carry me a short cut through his own ground, which 
he told me would save half a mile's riding. This last piece of 
civility had like to have cost me dear, being once or twice in. 
danger of my neck by leaping over his ditches, and at last 
forced to alight in the dirt, when my horse, having slipped his 
bridle, ran away, and took us up more than an hour to recover 
him asrain. 



Upon the highest corner of a large window there dwelt a cer- 
tain spider, swollen up to the first magnitude by the destruction 
of infinite numbers of flies, whose spoils lay scattered before the 
gates of his palace, like human bones before the cave of some 
giant. The avenues to his castle were guarded with turnpikes 
and palisadoes, all after the modern way of fortification. After 
you had passed several courts you came to the centre, wherein 
you might behold the constable himself in his own lodgings, 
which had windows fronting to each avenue, and ports to sally 
out upon all occasions of prey or defence. In this mansion he 
had for some time dwelt in peace and plenty, without danger 
to his person by swallows from above, or to his palace by 
brooms from below: when it was the pleasure of fortune to 
conduct thither a wandering bee, to whose curiosity a broken 
pane in the glass had discovered itself, and in he went; where, 
expatiating a while, he at last happened to alight upon one of 
the outward walls of the spider's citadel; which, yielding to 
the unequal weight, sunk down to the very foundation. Thrice 
he endeavored to force his passage, and thrice the centre shook. 
The spider within, feeling the terrible convulsion, supposed at 
first that nature was approaching to her final dissolution ; or 
else, that Beelzebub, with all his legions, was come to revenue 
the death of many thousands of his subjects- whom his enemy 
had slain and devoured. However, he at length valiantly re- 
solved to issue forth and meet his fate. Meanwhile the bee 
had acquitted himself of his toils, and, posted securely at some 
distance, was employed in cleansing his wings, and disengaging 



* This is taken from «•' The Battle of the Books," and had reference to the 
great contest then going on between the advocates of ancient and modern 
learning. The Bee represents the ancients ; the Spider, the moderns. 

' Beelzebub, in the Hebrew, signifies lord of flies. 



1727-1760.J SWIFT. 397 

them from the rugged remnants of the cobweb. By this time 
the spider was adventured out, when, beholding the chasms, 
the ruins and dilapidations of his fortress, he was very near at 
his wits' end ; he stormed and swore like a madman, and swelled 
till he was ready to burst. At length, casting his eye upon the 
bee, and wisely gathering causes from events, (for they knew 
each other by sight,) "A plague split you," said he, "for a giddy 
puppy ; is it you, with a vengeance, that have made this litter 
here? could you not look before you? do you think I have 
nothing else to do but to mend and repair after you ?" — " Good 
words, friend," said the bee (having now pruned himself, and 
being disposed to be droll) : " I'll give you my hand and word 
to come near your kennel no more ; I was never in such a con- 
founded pickle since I was born." — " Sirrah," replied the 
spider, "if it were not for breaking an old custom in our family, 
never to stir abroad against an enemy, I should come and teach 
you better manners." — " I pray have patience," said the bee, 
" or you'll spend your substance, and, for aught I see, you may 
stand in need of it all, toward the repair of your house." — 
" Rogue, rogue," replied the spider, " yet methinks you should 
have more respect to a person whom all the world allows to be 
so much your betters." — "By my troth," said the bee, "the 
comparison will amount to a very good jest; and you will do 
me a favor to let me know the reasons that all the world is 
pleased to use in so hopeful a dispute." At this, the spider, 
having swelled himself into the size and posture of a disputant, 
began his argument in the true spirit of controversy, with reso- 
lution to be heartily scurrilous and angry; to urge on his own 
reasons without the least regard to the answers or objections 
of his opposite ; and fully predetermined in his mind against all 
conviction. 

"Not to disparage myself," said he, "by the comparison 
with such a rascal, what art thou but a vagabond without house 
or home, without stock or inheritance? born to no possession 
of your own, but a pair of wings and a drone-pipe. Your 
livelihood is a universal plunder upon nature ; a freebooter over 
fields and gardens ; and, for the sake of stealing, will rob a nettle 
as easily as a violet. Whereas I am a domestic animal, fur- 
nished with a native stock within myself. This large castle 
(to show my improvements in the mathematics) is all built with 
my own hands, and the materials extracted altogether out of my 
own person." 

" I am glad," answered the bee, "to hear you grant at least 
that I am come honestly by my wings and my voice ; for then, 



1 



398 SWIFT. [george II. 

it seems, I am obliged to Heaven alone for my flights and my 
music ; and Providence would never have bestowed on me two 
such gifts, without designinsj them for the noblest ends. I visit, 
indeed, all the flowers and blossoms of the field and garden ; 
but whatever I collect thence, enriches myself, without the least 
injury to their beauty, their smell, or their taste. Now, for you 
and your skill in architecture and other mathematics, I have 
little to say» in that building of yours there might, for aught I 
know, have been labor and method enough; but, by woeful 
experience for us both, it is too plain the materials are naught; 
and I hope you will henceforth take warning, and consider 
duration and matter, as well as method and art. You boast, 
indeed, of being oblifred to no other creature, but of drawing 
and spinning out all from yourself; that is to say, if we may 
judge of the liquor in the vessel by what issues out, you pos- 
sess a good plentiful store of dirt and poison in your breast; 
and, though I would by no means lessen or disparage your 
genuine stock of either, yet I doubt you are somewhat obliged, 
for an increase of both, to a little foreign assistance. Your in- 
herent portion of dirt does not fail of acquisitions, by sweepings 
exhaled from below; and one insect furnishes you with a share 
of poison to destroy another. So that, in short, the question 
comes all to this: whether is the nobler being of the two, that 
which, by a lazy contemplation of four inches round, by an 
overweening pride, feeding and engendering on itself, turns all 
into excrement and venom, producing nothing at all but flybane 
and a cobweb; or that which, by a universal range, with long 
search, much study, true judgment, and distinction of things, 
brings home honey and wax?" 

THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION.' 

Dining one day at an alderman's in the city, Peter observed 
him expatiating, after the manner of his brethren, in the praises 
of his sirloin of beef. Beef, said the sage magistrate, is the 
king of meat ; beef comprehends in it the quintessence of par- 
tridge, and quail, and venison, and pheasant, and plum-pud- 
ding, and custard. When Peter came home, he would needs 
take the fancy of cooking up this doctrine into use, and apply 
the precept, in default of a sirloin, to his brown-loaf: Bread, 
says he, dear brothers, is the staff of life ; in which bread is 
contained, inclusive, the quintessence of beef, mutton, veal, 

' From the " Tale of a Tub." 



1727-1760.] SWIFT. 399 

venison, partridge, plum-pudding, and custard: and to render 
all complete, there is intermingled a due quantity of water, 
whose crudities are also corrected by yeast or barm ; through 
which means it becomes a wholesome fermented liquor, dif- 
fused through the mass of the bread. Upon the strength of 
these conclusions, next day at dinner, was the brown loaf served 
up in all the formality of a city feast. Come, brothers, said 
Peter, fall to, and spare not; here is excellent good mutton; or 
hold, now my hand is in, I will help you. At which word, in 
much ceremony, with fork and knife he carves out two good 
slices of a loaf, and presents each on a plate to his brothers. 
The elder of the two, not suddenly entering into Lord Peter's 
conceit, began with very civil language to examine the mystery. 
My lord, said he, I doubt with great submission there may be 
some mistake. What, says Peter, you are pleasant; come 
then, let us hear this jest your head is so big with. None in 
the world, my lord ; but, unless I am very much deceived, 
your lordship was pleased a while ago to let fall a word about 
mutton, and I would be glad to see it with all my heart. How, 
said Peter, appearing in great surprise, I do not comprehend 
this at all. — IJpon which the younger interposing to set the 
business aright; my lord, said he, my brother, 1 suppose, is 
hungry, and longs for the mutton your lordship has promised 
us to dinner. Pray, said Peter, take me along with you ; 
either you are both mad, or disposed to be merrier than I ap- 
prove of; if you there do not like your piece, I will carve you 
another; though I should take that to be the choice bit of the 
whole shoulder. What then, my lord, replied the first, it seems 
this is a shoulder of mutton all this while? Pray, sir, says 
Peter, eat your victuals, and leave off your impertinence, if you 
please, for I am not disposed to relish it at present: but the 
other could not forbear, being over-provoked at the affected 
seriousness of Peter's countenance. My lord, said he, I can 
only say, that to my eyes, and fingers, and teeth, and nose, it 
seems to be nothing but a crust of bread. Upon v/hich the 
second put in his word : I never saw a piece of mutton in my 
life so nearly resembling a slice from a twelve-penny loaf. 
Look ye, gentlemen, cries Peter, in a rage, to convince you 
what a couple of blind, positive, ignorant, wilful puppies you 
are, I will use but this plain argument; it is true, good, natural 
mutton as any in Leadenhall market ; and God v/ill confound 
you both eternally, if you offer to believe otheru'ise. Such a 
thundering proof as this left no farther room for objection; the 
two unbeHevers began to gather and pocket up their mistake, 



400 SWIFT. [george II. 

as hastily as they could. Why, truly, said the first, upon more 
mature consideration — Ay, says the other, interrupting him, 
now I have thought better on the thing, your lordship seems 
to have a great deal of reason. Very well, said Peter ; here, 
boy, till me a beer-glass of claret; here's to you both with all 
my heart. The two brethren, much delighted to see him so 
readily appeased, returned their most humble thanks, and said, 
they would be glad to pledge his lordship. That you shall, 
said Peter ; I am not a person to refuse you any thing that is 
reasonable : wine, moderately taken, is a cordial; here is a glass 
a piece for you : it is true natural juice from the grape, none of 
your vile vintner's brewings. Having spoke thus, he presented 
to each of them another large dry crust, bidding them drink it 
off, and not be bashful, for it would do them no hurt. The 
two brothers, after having performed the usual office in such 
delicate conjunctures, of staring a sufficient period at Lord Peter 
and each other, and finding how matters were likely to go, re- 
solved not to enter on a new dispute, but to let him carry the 
point as he pleased : for he was now got into one of his mad 
fits, and to argue or expostulate farther, would only serve to 
render him a hundred times more untractable. 

Though Swift wrote much that ranks under poetry, yet he had none of the 
characteristics of a true poet — nothing of the sublime or the tender ; nothing, 
in short, that reaches or afFects the heart. " It could scarcely be expected," 
says a critic, " that an irreligious divine, a heartless poHtician, and a selfish 
lover, could possess the elements of true poetry ; and, therefore, Swift may 
be considered rather as a rhymer than a poet." This is true ; as he himself 
says in the " Verses on his own Death:" 

"The Dean was famous in his time, 
And had a kind of knack at rhyme." 

This " knack" he had in a very eminent degree— the " knack" of writing 
easy, natural rhymes — of using just the very words in verse that any one 
would select as the best in prose. In proof of which take the following 
selections. 

BAUCIS A\D PHILEMON. 

In ancient times, as story tells, 
The saints would often leave their cells, 
And stroll about, but hide their quality, 
To try good people's hospitality. 

It happened on a winter night, 
As authors of the legend write, 
Two brother-hermits, saints by trade, 
Taking their tour in masquerade, 



1727-1760.] SWIFT. 401 

Disguis'd in tatter'd habits, went 
To a small village down in Kent; 
Where, in the strollers' canting strain, 
They begg'd from door to door in vain. 
Tried every tone might pity ^vin ; 
But not a soul would let them in. 

Our wandering saints, in woful state, 
Treated at this ungodly rate. 
Having through all the village past, 
To a small cottage came at last ! 
Where dwelt a good old honest ye'man, 
Caird in the neighborhood Philemon ; 
Who kindly did these saints invite 
In his poor hut to pass the night; 
And then the hospitable sire 
Bid goody Baucis mend the fire ; 
While he from out the chimney took 
A flitch of bacon ofl" the hook, 
And freely from the fattest side 
Cut out large slices to be fry'd ; 
Then stepp"d aside to fetch them drink, 
Fiird a large jug up to the brink, 
And saw it fairly twice go round ; 
Yet (what is wonderful!) they found 
'Twas still replenish'd to the top. 
As if they ne'er had touch'd a drop. 
The good old couple were amaz'd, 
And often on each other gaz'd; 
For both were frighten'd to the heart, 
And just began to cry, — What ar't ! 
Then softly turn'd aside to view 
Whether the lights were burning blue. 
The gentle pilgrims, soon aware on't, 
Told them their calling, and their errand: 
Good folks, you need not be afraid, 
We are but saints, the hermits said ; 
No hurt shall come to you or yours : 
But for that pack of churlish boors. 
Not fit to live on Christian ground. 
They and their houses shall be drown'd ; 
Whilst you shall see your cottage rise, 
, And grow a church before your eyes. 

They scarce had spoke, when fair and soft 
The roof began to mount aloft ; 
Aloft rose every beam and rafter ; 
The heavy wall climb'd slowly after. 

The chimney widen'd, and grew higher. 
Became a steeple with a spire. 

The kettle to the top was hoist, 
And there stood fasten'd to a joist, 
But with the upside down, to show 
Its inclination for below: 
26 



402 SWIFT. [OEORGE II. 

In vain; for a superior force, 
Apply'd at bottom, stops its course : 
Doom'd ever in suspense to dwell, 
'Tis now no kettle, but a bell. 

A wooden jack, which had almost 
Lost by disuse the art to roast, 
A sudden alteration feels, 
Increas'd by new intestine wheels ; 
And, what exalts the wonder more, 
The number made the motion slower : 
The flier, though "t had leaden feet, 
Turn'd round so quick, you scarce could see *t; 
But, slacken'd by some secret power, 
Now hardly moves an inch an hour. 
The jack and chimney, near allyd, 
Had never left each others side : 
The chimney to a steeple grown, . 
The jack would not be left alone ; 
But, up against the steeple rear'd. 
Became a clock, and still adher'd ; 
And still its love to household cares. 
By a shrill voice at noon, declares. 
Warning the cook-maid not to bum 
That roast-meat which it cannot turn. 

Tlie groaning-chair began to crawl, 
Like a huge snail, along the wall ; 
There stuck aloft in public view. 
And, with small change, a pulpit grew. 

The porringers, that in a ro"w 
Hung high, and made a glittering show. 
To a less noble substance chang"d, 
Were now but leathern buckets rang'd. 

The ballads, pasted on the wall, 
Of Joan of France, and English Moll, 
Fair Rosamond, and Robin Hood, 
The Little Children in the Wood, 
Now seem'd to look abundance better, 
Improv'd in picture, size, and letter ; 
And, high in order plac"d, describe 
The heraldry of every tribe.* 

A bedstead of the antique mode, 
Compact of timber many a load, 
Such as our ancestors did use. 
Was metamorphos'd into pews ; 
Which still their ancient nature keep 
By lodging folks disposed to sleep. 

The cottage by such feats as these 
GroM^ to a church by just degrees. 
The hermits then desir'd their host 
To ask for what he fancy'd most. 

1 The tribes of Israel are sometimes distinguished in country churches by 
the ensigns given to them by Jacob. 



1727-1760.] SWIFT. 403 

Philemon, having paus'd a while, 
Return"d them thanks in homely style : 
Then said, My house is grown so fine, 
Me thinks I still would call it mine; 
I'm old, and fain would hve at ease ; 
Make me the parson^ if you please. 

He spoke, and presently he feels 
His grazier's coat fall down his heels : 
He sees, yet hardly can believe. 
About each arm a pudding-sleeve ; 
His waistcoat to a cassock grew, 
And both assmii'd a sable hue ; 
But, being old, continued just 
As thread-bare, and as full of dust. 
His talk was now of tithes and dues : 
He smok"d his pipe, and read the news ; 
Knew how to preach old sermons next, 
Vamp'd in the preface and the text ; 
At christenings well could act his part. 
And had the service all by heart; 
Against dissenters would repine, 
And stood up firm for nght divhie; 
Found his head filTd with many a system: 
But classic authors, — he ne"er miss'd 'em. 

Thus having furbish'd up a parson. 
Dame Baucis next they playYl their farce on. 
Instead of home-sjjun coifs, were seen 
Good pinners edg'd with colberteen; 
Her petticoat transformed apace. 
Became black satin flounc'd with lace. 
Plain Goody would no longer down; 
"Twas Madam, in her grogram gown. 
Philemon was in great surprise. 
And hardly could believe his eyes, 
Amaz'd to see her look so prim ; 
And she admir'd as much at him. 

Thus happy in their change of life 
Were several years this man and wife ; 
When on a day, which prov'd their last, 
Discoursing o'er old stories past, 
They went by chance, amidst their talk, 
To the churchyard, to take a walk ; 
When Baucis hastily cry'd out, 
My dear, I see your forehead sprout! 
Sprout! quoth the man; what's this you tell usi 
I hope you don't believe me jealous ! 
But yet. methinks, I feel it true; 
And really yours is budding too — • 
Nay, — now I cannot stir my foot; 
It feels as if 'twere taking root. 

Description would but tire my Muse ; 
In short, they both were turju'd to yews. 



404 POPE. [george II. 

Old Goodman Dobson of the green 
Remembers, he the trees has seen ; 
He'll talk of them from noon till night, 
And goes with folks to show the sight : 
On Sundays, after evening-prayer, 
He gathers all the parish there ; 
Points out the place of either yew; 
Here Baucis, there Philemon, grew ; 
Till once a parson of our town, 
To mend his barn, cut Baucis down ; 
At which 'tis hard to be believ'd 
How much the other tree was griev'd, 
Grew scrubbed, dy'd a-top, was stunted; 
So the next parson stubb'd and burnt it. 



ALEXANDER POPE, 1688—1744. 

This great poet was born in London, on the 22d of May, 1688. His 
father was a linen-draper, who had acquired a considerable fortune by trade. 
Being of a feeble frame and delicate constitution, his early education was 
chiefly domestic. At the age of twelve, having made considerable progress 
in the Greek and Latin languages, he resolved to pursue his own plan of 
study ; and his reading, of which he was excessively fond, became uncom- 
monly extensive and various. At a very early period he manifested the 
greatest fondness for poetry : as he says of himself, 

" I lisped in numbers, and the numbers came." 

This taste was in a measure formed from the perusal of Ogilby's Homer, 
when only ten years of age. Before he was twelve, he wrote his " Ode on 
Solitude," remarkable for the precocity of sentiment it exhibits, and for that 
delicacy of language and harmony of versification, for which he afterwards 
became so eminent. At the age of sixteen he wrote his " Pastorals," with 
a preliminary " Discourse on Pastoral poetry," "which," says Warton, "is 
a more extraordinary production than the Pastorals that follow it." At the 
age of eighteen he produced the "Messiah," a sacred eclogue in imitation 
of Virgil's Pollio.^ In 1709, before he had reached the age of twenty-one, 

^ Pollio was a Roman senator in the time of Augustus, and celebrated not 
only as a general, but as a patron of letters and the fine arts. Virgil addressed 
to him his fourth Eclogue at a time (B. C. 40) when Augustus and Antony had 
ratified a league of peace, and thus, as it was thought, established the tran- 
quillity of the empire, as in the times of the " golden age." In this Eclogue 
Virgil is most eloquent in the praise of peace, and in some of his figures and 
expressions is thought to have imitated the prophecies of Isaiah, which, pro- 
bably, he had read in the Greek Septuagint. But however this may be as re- 
gards Virgil, Roscoe well remarks of this production of Pope, that " the idea 
of uniting the sacred prophecies and grand imagery of Isaiah, with the 
mysterious visions and pomp of numbers displayed in the Pollio, thereby 
combining both sacred and heathen mythology in predicting the coming of the 



1727-1760.] POPE. 405 

he finished his " Essay on Criticism," of which Dr. Johnson remarks, "if 
he had written nothing else it would have placed him among the first critics, 
and the first poets ; as it exhibits every mode of excellence that can embel- 
hsh or dignify didactic composition — selection of matter, novelty of arrange- 
ment, justness of precept, splendor of illustration, and propriety of digres- 
sion."* 

In 1712 he published that remarkable heroi-comic poem, "The Rape of 
the Lock, "2 in which he has exhibited, more than in any other of his produc- 
tions, the highest faculty of the poet, — the creative.'^ " Its wit and humor," 
says Dr. Drake, "are of the most delicate and highly-finished kind; its 
fictions, sportive and elegant, and conceived with a propriety and force of 
imagination which astonish and fascinate every reader." To this suc- 
ceeded "The Temple of Fame," in imitation of Chaucer's "House of 
Fame," "Windsor Forest," a loco-descriptive poem, and " Eloisa to Abe- 
lard," the most popular, perhaps, of any of his productions. But all these 
poems, together with his Satires and Epistles, added but very little to his 
fortune. Accordingly, at the age of twenty-five, he issued proposals for the 
Translation of the Iliad, by subscription. The work was accomplished in 
five years, and while the profits were such as to gratify his utmost expecta- 
tions, ^ the great and signal merits of the translation received the warmest 
eulogiums from the literary world. In a few years after, in conjunction with 
Fenton and Broome, he translated the Odyssey. 

The fame which Pope acquired by these writings drew upon him the 
attacks of the envious;^ and a host of critics, individually insignificant, but 
troublesome from their numbers, continued to annoy him. To retaliate, he 
published, in 1728, "The Dunciad," a work "which fell among his oppo- 
nents like an exterminating thunderbolt." But while it has displayed the 

Messiah, is one of the happiest subjects for producing emotions of sublimity, 
that ever occurred to the mind of a poet." 

* " For a person only twenty years old to have produced such an Essay, so 
replete with a knowledge of life and manners, such accurate observations on 
men and books, such variety of literature, such strong good sense, and refined 
taste and judgment, has been the subject of frequent and of just admiration." 
— Warton. 

2 The subject of this poem was a quarrel, occasioned by a little piece of 
gallantry of Lord Petre, who, in a party of pleasure, found means to cut off a 
favorite lock of Mrs. Arabella Ferrnor's hair. " On so slight a foundation 
has he raised this beautiful superstructure; like a fairy palace in a desert." — 
Warton. 

^ "The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; 

And, as imagination bodies forth 

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 

A local habitation and a name." 

Midsuminer NighVs Dream, Act V. Scene 1. 

* He cleared the sum of five thousand three hundred and twenty pounds. 

s a Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous ; but who is able to stand before 
ENVY?" — Proverbs xxvii. 4. 



406 POPE. [george II. 

temperament of the author in no very enviable Hght, it has perpetuated the 
memory of many worthless scribblers, who, otherwise, would have sunk 
into oblivion. In 1733 he published his celebrated didactic poem, the 
"Essay on Man." No sooner did it appear than it was assailed by his 
enemies, and others, on the ground that it was full of skeptical or infidel 
tendencies. From this charge it was ably defended by the learned Dr. 
Warburton, and has since been most triumphantly vindicated in the prelimi- 
nary discourse of Mr. Roscoe.i After the publication of the "Essay on 
Man" he continued to compose occasional pieces, and planned many admira- 
ble works: among the latter, was "A History of the Rise and Progress of 
English Poetry." But he never lived to enter upon the work, for an asthma- 
tic affection, to which he had long been subject, terminated, in 1744, in a 
dropsy of the chest, and he expired on the 30th of May of that year. 

" What rank," says Dr. Drake, " should be assigned to Pope in a classi- 
fication of our English poets, has been a subject of frequent inquiry. It is 
evident, that by far the greater part of his original productions consists of 
ethic and satiric poetry ; and by those who estimate mere moral sentiment, 
or the exposure, in splendid versification, of fashionable vice or folly, as the 
highest province of the art, he must be considered as the first of bards. If, 
however, sublimity, imagination, and pathos be, as they assuredly are, the 
noblest efforts of the creative powers, and the most difliicult of attainment, 
Pope will be found to have had some superiors, and several rivals. With 
Spenser, Shakspeare and Milton," (and he might have added Chaucer,) 
" he cannot, in those essential qualities, enter into competition." So far we 
can fully agree with this judicious critic; but when he adds, "when com- 
pared with Dryden, Young, and Thomson, the mind hesitates in the allot- 
ment of superiority," we entirely dissent; for we should have not the least 
hesitation in placing him before Dryden and Thomson, however it might 
be with Young.2 

"MESSIAH." 
A SACRED ECLOGUE, IN IMITATION OF TIHGILS POLLIO, 

Ye n}'Tiiphs of Solyma!^ begin the song: 
To heavenly themes sublimer strains belong. 
The mossy fountains and the sylvan shades, 
The dreams of Pindus'* and the Aonian maids,^ 
Delight no more — Thou my voice inspire 
Who touch'd Isaiah's hallow'd lips with fire! 

' See Roscoe's edition of Pope, 10 vols. London, one of the choicest con- 
tributions to English literature of the present century. Read, also, that elegant 
and interesting piece of criticism, Warton's " Essay on the Genius and Writ- 
ings of Pope," a work of which it has been justly said that, " however often 
perused, it affords fresh delight, and may be considered as one of the books 
best adapted to excite a love of literature." 

2 Read an admirable " Estimate of the Poetical Character and Writings of 
Pope," prefixed to the second volume of Roscoe's edition. 

' Jerusalem. * A mountain in Thessaly, sacred to the muses. 

* Aonian maids — the muses. 



1727-1760.] POPE. 407 

Rapt into future times, the bard begun: 
A Virgin shall conceive, a Virgin bear a Son! 
From Jesse's' root behold a branch arise, 
Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies : 
The ethereal spirit o'er its leaves shall move, 
And on its top descend the mystic dove. 
Ye heavens 1^ from high the dewy nectar pour, 
And in soft silence shed the kindly shower ! 
The sick^ and weak the healing plant shall aid, 
From storm a shelter, and from heat a shade. 
All crimes shall cease, and ancient frauds shall fail; 
Returning Justice* lift aloft her scale ; 
Peace o"er the world her olive wand extend. 
And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend. 
Swift fly the years, and rise the expected morn ! 
Oh spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born! 
See, Nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring, 
With all the incense of the breathing spring : 
See lofty Lebanon^ his head advance. 
See nodding forests on the mountains dance : 
See spicy clouds from lowly Saron rise. 
And Carmel's flowery top perfume the skies ! 
Hark ! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers ; 
Prepare the way !6 A God, a God appears ! 
A God, a God ! the vocal hills reply ; 
The rocks proclaim the approaching Deity. 
Lo, earth receives him from the bending skies ! 
Sink down, ye mountains ; and ye valleys, rise ! 
With heads declined, ye cedars, homage pay ; 
Be smooth, ye rocks ; ye rapid floods, give way. 
The Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretold! 
Hear him, ye deaf;'' and all ye blind behold ! 
He from thick films shall purge the visual ray, 
And on the sightless eyeball pour the day: 
'Tis he the obstructed paths of sound shall clear, 
And bid new music charm the unfolding ear: 
The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego. 
And leap exulting, like the bounding roe. 
No sigh, no murmiir, the wide world shall hear; 
From every face he wipes ofi" every tear. 
In adamantine chains shall death be bound. 
And hell's grim tyrant feel the eternal wound. 
As the good shepherd^ tends his fleecy care. 
Seeks freshest pasture, and the purest air ; 
Explores the lost, the wandering sheep directs, 
By day o'ersees them, and by night protects ; 
The tender lambs he raises in his arms. 
Feeds from his hand, and in his bosom warms : 

- Isa. xi. ver. 1. * Isa. xlv. ver. 8. = Isa. xxv. ver. 4. 

^ Isa. ix. ver. 7. = Isa. xxxv. ver. 2. ^ Isa. xl. ver. 3, 4. 

■" Isa. xlii. ver. 18 ; ch. xxxv. ver. 5, 6. * Isa. xl. ver. 11. 



408 POPE. [george II. 

Thus shall mankind his guardian care engage, 

The promised fadier' of die Auure age. 

No more shall nation2 against naUon rise, 

Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes. 

Nor fields with gleaming steel be cover"d o'er, 

The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more ; 

But useless lances into scythes shall bend, 

And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end. 

Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son^ 

Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun ; 

Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield, 

And the same hand that sow'd shall reap the field. 

The swain in barren deserts^ \vith surprise 

Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise; 

And starts amidst the thirsty wilds to hear 

New falls of water murmuring in his ear. 

On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes. 

The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods. 

Waste sandy valleys,-^ once perplexVl with thorn, 

The spiry fir and shapely box adorn: 

To leafless shrubs the flowery palm succeed, 

And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed. 

The lambs^ with wolves shall graze the verdant mead, 

And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead. 

The steer and lion at one crib shall meet. 

And harmless serpents^ lick the pilgrim's feet. 

The smiling infant in his hand shall take 

The crested basilisk and speckled snake. 

Pleased, the green lustre of the scales survey. 

And with their forky tongues shall innocently play. 

Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem,^ rise, 

Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes ! 

See a long race^ thy spacious courts adorn ; 

See future sons and daughters, yet unborn, 

In crowding ranks on every side arise, 

Demanding life, impatient for the skies ! 

See barbarous nations'O at thy gates attend, 

Walk in thy hght, and in thy temple bend: 

See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings, 

And lieap'd with products of Sabean" springs! 

For thee Idume's spicy forests blow, 

And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow. 

See heaven its sparkling portals wide display, 

And break upon thee in a flood ol" day ! 

No more the rising sun'2 shall gild the morn. 

Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn : 

' Isa. ix. ver. 6. ^ jg^^ jj^ ^gj.^ 4^ 3 jg^, ]xv. ver. 21, 22. 

^ Isa. XXXV. ver. 1, 7. * Isa. xli. ver. 19, and ch. Iv. ver. 13. 

6 Isa.xi. ver. 6, 7, 8. '' Isa. Ixv. ver. 25. ^ Isa. Ix. ver. 1. 

s Isa. Ix. ver. 4. *° Isa. Ix. ver. 3. " Isa. Ix. ver. 6. 

^2 Isa. Ix. ver. 19, 20. 



1727-1760.] POPE. 409 

But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays, 

One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze. 

O'er flow thy courts : the Light himself shall shine 

Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine ! 

The seas* shall waste, the skies in smoke decay, 

Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away ; 

But fix'd his word, his saving power remains ; 

Thy realm forever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns? 



THE TOILET. 

And now, unveiled, the toilet stands displayed, 

Each silver vase in mystic order laid ; 

First, robed in white, the nymph intent adores, 

With head uncovered, the cosmetic powers. 

A heavenly image in the glass appears, 

To that she bends, to that her eye she rears ; 

The inferior priestess, at her altar's side. 

Trembling begins the sacred rites of pride. 

Unnumbered treasures ope at once, and here 

The various offerings of the world appear ; 

From each she nicely culls with curious toil, 

And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil. 

This casket India's glowing gems unlocks, 

And all Arabia breathes from yonder box : 

The tortoise here and elephant unite. 

Transformed to combs, the speckled and the white. 

Here files of pins extend their shining rows, 

Puffs, powders, patches, bibles, billet-doux. 

Now awful beauty puts on all its arms ; 

The fair each moment rises in her charms. 

Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace, 

And calls forth all the wonders of her face ; 

Sees by degrees a purer blush arise, 

And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes. 

The busy sylphs surround their darling care, 

These set the head, and those divide the hair; 

Some fold the sleeve, whilst others plait the gown. 

And Betty's praised for labors not her own. 

From the Rape of the Loch 



DESCRIPTION OF BELINDA AND THE SYLPHS, AND ARIEL S 
ADDRESS TO THE SAME. 

Not with more glories, in the ethereal plain, 
The sun first rises o'er the purpled main, 
Than issuing forth, the rival of his beams 
Launched on the bosom of the silver Thames. 

^ Isa. li. ver. 6, and ch. liv. ver. 10. 



410 POPE. [gEORGE II. 

Fair nymphs and well-drest youths around her shone, 

But every eye was fixed on her alone. 

On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, 

Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore. 

Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose, 

Quick as her eyes, and as unfixed as tliose. 

Favors to none, to all she smiles extends ; 

Oft she rejects, but never once offends. 

Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, 

And, like the sun, they shine on all alike. 

Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride. 

Might liide her faults, if belles had faults to hide; 

If to her share some female errors fall. 

Look on her face, and you'll forget them all. 

This nymph, to the destruction of mankind. 
Nourished two locks, which graceful hung behind 
In equal curls, and well conspired to deck. 
With shining ringlets, the smooth ivory neck. 
Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains, 
And mighty hearts are held in slender chains. 
With hairy springes we the birds betray. 
Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey; 
Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare, 
Antl beauty draws us with a single hair. 

The adventrous baron the bright locks admired; 
He saw, he wished, and to the prize aspired. 
Resolved to win, he meditates the way. 
By force to ravish, or by fraud betray ; 
For when success a lover's toil attends, 
Few ask if fraud or force attained his ends. 

For this, ere Phcebus rose, he had implored 
Propitious heaven, and every power adored ; 
But chiefly Love — to Love an altar built, 
Of twelve vast French romances, neatly gilt. 
There lay three garters, half a pair of gloves, 
And all the trophies of his former loves; 
With tender billet-doux he lights the pyre, 
And breathes three amorous sighs to raise the fire. 
Then prostrate falls, and begs with ardent eyes 
Soon to obtain, and long possess the prize ; 
The powers gave ear, and granted half his prayer. 
The rest the winds dispersed in empty air. 

But now secure the painted vessel glides, 
The sunbeams trembling on the floating tides : 
While melting music steals upon the sky, 
And softened sounds along the waters die ; 
Smooth flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play, 
Belinda smiled, and all the world was gay. 
All but the Sylph, with careful thoughts opprest, 
The impending wo sat hea^•y on his breast. 
He summons straight his denizens of air ; 
The lucid squadrons round the sails repair. 



1727-1760.] POPE. 411 

Soft o'er the shrouds aerial whispers breathe, 
That seemed but zephyrs to the train beneath. 
Some to the sun their insect wings unfold, 
Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold ; 
Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight, 
Their fluid bodies half dissolved in light, 
Loose to the wind their airy garments flew, 
Thin glittering textures of the filmy dew, 
Dipped in the richest tincture of the skies, 
Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes; 
While every beam new transient colors flings, 
Colors that change whene'er they wave their wings. 
Amid the circle on the gilded mast, 
Superior by the head was Ariel placed; 
His purple pinions opening to the sun, 
He raised his azure wand and thus begun :— 

Ye sylphs and sylphids, to your chief give ear; 
Fays, fairies, genii, elves, and daemons, hear ! 
Ye know the spheres, and various tasks assigned 
By laws eternal to the aerial kind. 
Some in the fields of purest ether play, 
And bask and whiten in the blaze of day; 
Some guide the course of wandering orbs on high, 
Or roll the planets through the boundless sky; 
Some, less refined, beneath the moon's pale light 
Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the night, 
Or suck the mists in grosser air below, 
Or dip their pinions in the painted bow, 
Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main, 
Or o'er the glebe distil the kindly rain. 
Others on earth o'er human race preside. 
Watch all their ways, and all their actions guide : 
Of these the chief the care of nations own. 
And guard with arms divine the British throne. 

Our humbler province is to tend the fair, 
Not a less pleasing, though less glorious care ; 
To save the powder from too rude a gale, 
Nor let the imprisoned essences exhale ; 
To draw fresh colors from the vernal flowers; 
To steal from rainbows, ere they drop in showers, 
A brighter wash ; to curl their waving hairs. 
Assist their blushes, and inspire their airs ; 
Nay oft, in dreams, invention we bestow, 
To change a flounce, or add a furbelow. 

This day, black omens threat the brightest fair 
That e'er deserved a watchful spirit's care ; 
Some dire disaster, or by force or flight; 
But what, or where, the fates have wrapped in night. 
Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law, 
Or some frail China-jar receive a flaw. 
Or stain her honor, or her new brocade, 
Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade ; 



412 POPE. [george II. 

Or lose her heart or necklace at a ball ; 

Or whether heaven has doomed that Shock' must fall. 

Haste, then, ye spirits! to your charge repair: 

The fiiuiering fan Ijc Zephyretta's care; 

The drops to tlice, Brillanle, we consign ; 

And, Monientilla, let the watch be thine; 

Do thou, Crispissa, tend her favorite Lock; 

Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock. 

To fifty chosen sylphs, of special note, 

We trust the important charge, the petticoat: 

Oft have we known that sevenfold fence to fail, 

Thongh stiff with hoops, and armed with ribs of whale. 

Form a strong line alx)ut the silver bound, 

And guard the wide circumference around. 

Whatever spirit, careless of his charge. 
His post neglects, or leaves the fair at large, 
Shall feel sharp vengeance soon overtake his sins, 
Be stopped in vials, or transfixed with pins; 
Or plunged in lakes of bitter washes lie, 
Or wedged whole ages in a bodkin's eye : 
Gums and pomatums shall his flight restrain, 
While clogged lie beats his silken wings in vain; 
Or alum styptics with contracting power 
Shrink his thin essence like a shrivelled, flower: 
Or, as Ixion fixed, the wretch shall feel 
The giddy motion of the whirling mill ; 
In fumes of burning chocolate shall glow, 
And tremble at the sea that froths below ! 

He spoke ; the spirits from the sails descend : 
Some, orb in orb, around the nymph extend; 
Some thrid the mazy ringlets of her hair. 
Some hang upon the pendants of her car: 
With beating hearts the dire event they wait, 
Anxious, and trembling for the birth of fate. 

From the same. 

THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL. 

Vital spark of heavenly flame ! 
Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame : 
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying — 
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying! 
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife, 
And let me languish into life. 

Hark! they whisper; angels say, 
Sister spirit, come away. 
What is this absorbs me quite, 
Steals my senses, shuts my sight, 
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath ? 
Tell me, my soul, can this be' death? 

'■ Her lap-dog. 



1727-1760,] POPE. 413 

The world recedes ; it disappears I 
Heaven opens on my eyes ! my ears 

With sounds seraphic ring : 
Lend, lend your wings ! I mount ! I fly ! 
Oh grave! where is thy victory? 

Oh death! where is thy sting? 



EPITAPH ON MRS. CORBET.l 

Here rests a woman, good without pretence, 
Bless'd with plain reason, and with sober sense ; 
No conquests she, but o'er herself, desired, 
No arts essay'd, but not to be admired. 
Passion and pride were to her soul unknown, 
Convinced that virtue only is our own. 
So unaifected, so composed a mind ; 
So firm, yet soft ; so strong, yet so refined ; 
Heaven, as its purest gold, by tortures tried; 
The saint sustain'd it, but the woinan died. 



COUPLETS FROM THE ESSAY ON CRITICISM. 

'Tis with our judgments, as our watches, none 
Go just alike, yet each believes his own. 

Trust not yourself; but, your defects to know, 
Make use of ev'ry friend — and ev'ry foe. 

A little learning is a dangerous thing; 
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. 

'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, 
But the joint force and full result of all. 

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold ; 
Alike fantastic, if too new, or old ; 
Be not the first by whom the new are try'd, 
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. 

At every trifle scorn to take offence. 

That always shows great pride, or little sense. 

Be thou the first true merit to befriend ; 

His praise is lost, who stays till all commend. 

Be silent always, when you doubt your sense; 
And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence. 

The bookful blockhead ignorantly read, 
With loads of learned lumber in his head, 

'■ " I have always considered this as the most valuable of Pope's epitaphs ; 
the subject of it is a character not discriminated by any shining or eminent 
peculiarities, yet that which really makes, though not the splendor, the feli- 
city of life." — Johnson. 



414 POPE. [george II. 

With his own tongue still edifios his ears, 
And always list'ning to himself appears. 

It is to be regretted that tlie prose works of Pope are so few, as what he 
has left us are remarkable for great purity and correctness of style, clearness 
of conception, and soundness of judgment. The chief of them are his Let- 
ters, which are among the very best specimens of epistolary writing; a 
Preface to the Iliad ; a Postscript to the Odyssey ; a Preface to Shakspeare; 
and Prefaces to hie Pastorals and collected works. 



SHAKSPEARE. 

If ever any author deserved the name of an original, it was 
Shakspeare. Homer himself drew not his art so immediately 
from the fountains of Nature; it proceeded through Egyptian 
strainers and channels, and came to him not without some 
tincture of the learning, or some cast of the models, of those 
before him. The poetry of Shakspeare was inspiration indeed : 
he is not so much an imitator, as an instrument, of Nature ; and 
it is not so just to say that he speaks from her, as that she 
speaks through him. * 

His characters are so much Nature* herself, that it is a sort 
of injury to call them by so distant a name as copies of her. 
Those of other poets have a constant resemblance, which shows 
that they received them from one another, and were but multi- 
pliers of the same image ; each picture, like a mock-rainbow, 
is but the reflection of a reflection. But every single character 
in Shakspeare is as much an individual, as those in life itself: 
it is as impossible to find any two alike ; and such as from their 
relation or afilnity in any respect appear most to be twins, will, 
upon comparison, be found remarkably distinct. To this life 
and variety of character, we must add the wonderful preserva- 
tion of it ; which is such throughout his plays, that had all the 
speeches been printed without the very names of the persons, 
I believe one might have applied them with certainty to every 
speaker. 

The power over our passions was never possessed in a more 
eminent degree, or displayed in so difli'erent instances. Yet all 
along, there is seen no labor, no pains to raise them ; no pre- 
paration to guide or guess to the eff'ect, or be perceived to lead 
toward it: but the heart swells, and the tears burst out, just at 
the proper places : we are surprised at the moment we weep ; 

' See Mrs. Montagu's ingenious Essay on Shakspeare, and her confutations 
of some of Voltaire's criticisms. 



1727-1760.] POPE. 415 

and yet, upon reflection, find the passion so just, that we should 
be surprised if we had not wept, and wept at that very moment. 

How astonishing is it, again, that the passions directly oppo- 
site to these, laughter and spleen, are no less at his command ! 
that he is not more a master of the great than the ridiculous^ 
in human nature ; of our noblest tendernesses, than of our 
vainest foibles ; of our strongest emotions, than of our idlest 
sensations ! 

Nor does he only excel in the passions : in the coolness of 
reflection and reasoning, he is full as admirable. His sentiments 
are not only in general the most pertinent and judicious upon 
every subject; but by a talent very peculiar, something between 
penetration and felicity, he hits upon that particular point on 
which the bent of each argument turns, or the force of each 
motive depends. This is perfectly amazing, from a man of no 
education or experience in those great and public scenes of life 
which are usually the subject of his thoughts: so that he 
seems to have known the world by intuition, to have looked 
through human nature at one glance, and to be the only author 
that gives ground for a very new opinion, that the philosopher, 
and even the man of the world, may be born, as well as the 
poet. 

Preface to Shakspeare. 



HOMER AND VIRGIL COMPARED. 

On whatever side we contemplate Homer, what principally 
strikes us is his invention. It is that which forms the charac- 
ter of each part of his work ; and accordingly we find it to 
have made his fable more extensive and copious than any other, 
his manners more lively and strongly marked, his speeches 
more affecting and transporting, his sentiments more warm, 
and sublime, his images and descriptions more full and ani- 
mated, his expression more raised and daring, and his numbers 
more rapid and various. I hope, in what has been said of 

* On the astonishing idea of this double power over our passions, Gray has 
formed that exquisitely beautiful Prosopopoeia of Nature appearing to him in 
his infancy, and saying : 

"This pencil take, whose colors clear 
Richly paint the vernal year; 
Thine too these golden keys, immortal boy ! 
This can unlock the gates of joy; 
Of horror that, and thrilling fears. 
Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears." 

Progress of Poetry, 



416 BLAIR. LgEORGE II. 

Virgil, with regard to any of these heads, I have no way dero- 
gated from his character. Nothing is more absurd or endless, 
than the common method of comparing eminent writers bv an 
opposition of particular passages in them, and forming a judg- 
ment from thence of their merit upon the whole. We ought 
to have a certain knowledge of the principal character and dis- 
tinguished excellence of each : it is in that we are to consider 
him, and in proportion to his degree in that we are to admire 
him. No author or man ever excelled all the world in more 
than one faculty : and as Homer has done this m invention, 
Virgil has in judgment. Not that we are to think Homer 
wanted judgment, because Virgil had it in a more eminent 
degree ; or that Virgil wanted invention, because Homer pos- 
sessed a larger share of it: each of these great authors had 
•more of both than perhaps any man besides, and are only said 
to have less in comparison with one another. Homer was the 
greater genius ; Virgil, the better artist. In one we most ad- 
mire the man; in the other, the work. Homer hurries and 
transports us with a commanding impetuosity; Virgil leads 
us with an attractive majesty : Homer scatters with a generous 
profusion ; Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence : Homer, 
like the Nile, pours out his riches with a boundless overflow ; 
Virgil, like a river in its banks, with a gentle and constant 
stream. When we behold their battles, methinks the two 
Poets resemble the heroes they celebrate: Homer, boundless 
and irresistible as Achilles, bears all before him, and shines 
more and more as the tumult increases ; Virgil, calmly daring 
like JEneas, appears undisturbed in the midst of the action! 
disposes all about him, and conquers with tranquillity. And 
when we look upon their machines, Homer seems like his own 
Jupiter in his terrors, shaking Olympus, scattering the light- 
nings, and firing the heavens ; Virgil, like the same power in 
his benevolence, counselling with the gods, laying plans for 
empires, and regularly ordering his whole creation. 

Preface to Homer's Iliad. 



ROBERT BLAIR, 1G99-1746. 

Robert Blair, the author of " The Grave," was born in 1699. But 
few particulars are known respecting his hfe. After receiving a liberal edu- 
cation, he travelled on the Continent for further improvement, and in 1731 
was ordained as a minister of the parish of Athelstaneford, in East Lothian. 



1727-1760.] BLAIR. 417 

where he spent the remainder of his life, which was terminated by a fever, 
in 1746, in the forty-seventh year of his age. 

" The eighteenth century has produced few specimens of blank verse of 
so powerful and simple a character as that of the ' Grave.' It is a popular 
poem, not merely because it is religious, but because its language and im- 
agery are free, natural and picturesque. In the eye of fastidious criticism 
Blair may be a homely and even a gloomy poet ; but there is a masculine 
and pronounced character even in his gloom and homeliness, that keeps it 
most distinctly apart from either dryness or vulgarity. His style pleases us 
like the powerful expression of a countenance without regular beauty."^ 



THE GRAVE. 

Whilst some affect the sun, and some the shade, 

Some flee the city, some the hermitage; 

Their aims as various, as the roads they take 

In journeying through life ; — the task be mine 

To paint the gloomy horrors of the tomb; 

Th' appointed place of rendezvous, where all 

These travellers meet. — Thy succors I implore, 

Eternal King ! whose potent arm sustains 

The keys of hell and death. — The Grave — dread thing! 

Men shiver when thou 'rt nam'd. Nature, appall'd, 

Shakes off her wonted firmness. — Ah ! how dark 

Thy long-extended realms, and rueful wastes ! 

Where naught but silence reigns, and night, dark night, 

Dark as was chaos, ere the infant sun 

Was roird together, or had tried his beams 

Athwart the gloom profound. 



DEATH-DIVIDED FRIENDSHIPS. 

Invidious Grave ! how dost thou rend in sunder 
Whom love has knit, and sympathy made one ! 
A tie more stubborn far than nature's band. 
Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul! 
Sw-eetener of life! and solder of society! 
I owe thee much. Thou hast deserved from me 
Far, far beyond what I can ever pay. 
Oft have I proved the labors of thy love, 
And the w^arm efforts of thy gentle heart, 
Anxious to please. Oh! when my friend and I 
In some thick wood have wandered heedless on, 
Hid from the vulgar eye, and sat us down 
Upon the sloping cow^slip-covered bank, 
Where the pm-e limpid stream has slid along 
In grateful errors through the underwood, 
Sweet murmuring, methought the shrill-tongued thrush 

^ Campbell's Specimens, vol. v. p. 204. 
27 



418 BLAIR. [gEORGE II. 

Mended his song of love ; the sooty blackbird 
Mellowed his pipe, and softened every note ; 
The eglantine smelled svi^eeter, and the rose 
Assumed a dye more deep ; w^hilst every flower 
Vied with its fellow-plant in luxury 
Of dress ! Oh ! then the longest summer's day 
Seemed too, too much in haste : still, the full heart 
Had not imparted half: 'twas happiness 
Too exquisite to last. Of joys departed 
Not to return, how painful the remembrance! 



DEATH, THE GOOD MAN^S PATH TO ETERNAL JOY. 

Thrice welcome Death ! 
That, after many a painful bleeding step^ 
Conducts us to our home, and lands ns safe 
On the long-wished-fbr shore. Prodigious change ! 
Our bane turned to a blessing ! Death, disarmed, 
Loses his fellness quite ; all thanks to Him 
Who scourged the venom out. Sure the last end 
Of the good man is peace ! How calm his exit I 
Night-dews fall not more gently to the ground. 
Nor weary worn-out winds expire so soft. 
Behold him! in the evening tide of life, 
A life well spent, whose early care it was 
His riper years should not upbraid his green : 
By unperceived degrees he wears away ; 
Yet, like the sun, seems larger at his setting! 
High in his faith and hopes, look how he reaches 
After the prize in view ! and, like a bird 
That's hampered, struggles hard to get away! 
Whilst the glad gates of sight are wide expanded 
To let nev/ glories in, the first fair ftuits 
Of the fast-coming harvest. Then, oh then. 
Each earth-born joy grows vile, or disappears, 
Shrunk to a thing of naught! Oh, how he longs 
To have his passport signed, and be dismissed ! 
'Tis done — and now he's happy ! The glad soul 
Has not a wish uncrowned. E'en the lag fesh 
Rests, too, in hope of meeting once again 
Its better hall^^ never to sunder more. 
Nor shall it hope in vain: the time draws on 
When not a single spot of burial earth. 
Whether on land, or in the spacious sea. 
But must give back its long-committed dust 
Inviolate ; and faithfully shall these 
Make up the full account ; not the least atom 
Embezzled or mislaid of the whole tale. 
Each soul shall have a body ready furnished ,- 
And each shall have his own. Hence, ye profane! 
Ask not how this can be ? Sure the same power 
That reared the piece at fltrst, and took it down. 



1727-1760.] THOMSON. 419 

Can re-assemble the loose scattered parts, 

And put them as they were. Almighty God 

Hath done much more: nor is his arm impaired 

Through length of days; and what he can, he will; 

His faithfulness stands bound to see it done. 

When the dread trumpet sounds, the slumbering dust, 

Not unattentive to the call, shall wake ; 

And every joint possess its proper place, 

With a new elegance of form, unknown 

To its first state. Nor shall the conscious soul 

Mistake its pa.rtner, but amidst the crowd, 

Singling its other half, into its arms 

Shall rush, with all the impatience of a man 

That's new come home, and, having long been absent, 

With haste runs over every different room. 

In pain to see the whole. Thrice-happy meeting ! 

Nor time, nor death, shall ever part them more. 

'Tis but a night, a long and moonless night; 
We make the grave our bed, and then are gone! 

Thus, at the shut of even, the weary bird 
Leaves the wide air, and in some lonely brake 
Cowers down, and dozes till the dawn of day, 
Then claps his well-fledged wings, and bears away. 



JAMES THOMSON, 1700—1748. 

James Thomson, the author of " The Seasons," was the son of a Scotch 
clergyman, and was born in the year 1700. After completing his academic 
education at the University of Edinburgh, he entered upon the study of 
divinity; but a paraphrase of one of the Psalms having been given by the 
professor of divinity, to the class, Thomson's exercise was in so poetical 
and figurative a style as to astonish all who heard it. This incident made 
him resolve to quit divinity for poetry, and, after some time he went to Lon- 
don, poor and friendless, to try his fortune, with the manuscript of "Winter" 
in his pocket. It was with difficulty he found a purchaser for it, and the 
price given was trifling. It was published in 1726, and after a short neglect, 
was admired and applauded, and a number of editions speedily followed. 
His "Summer" appeared in 1727, "Spring" in 1728, and "Autumn" in 
1730. 

After the publication of the Seasons, he travelled on the continent with 
the son of the Lord Chancellor Talbot, and on his return employed himself 
in the composition of his various tragedies, and his poem on "Liberty." 
These are by no means equal to his other performances, and are now but 
little read. In May, 1748, he finished his "Castle of Indolence," upon 
which he had been laboring for years. This is the noblest effort of his 
genius. "To it," says Campbell, "he brought not only the full nature, 
but the perfect art of a poet. The materials of that exquisite poem are 



420 THOMSON. [gEORGE II. 

derived originally from Tasso ; but he was more immediately indebted for 
them to the ' Faerie Queene.' Indeed, of all the imitations of Spenser, it is 
the most spirited and beautiful, both for its moral, poetical and descriptive 
power. He did not long survive its publication, A violent cold, through 
inattention, terminated in a fever, and carried him off on the 27th of August, 
1748. 

In nature and originality, Thomson is superior to all the descriptive poets 
except Cowper, and few poems in the English language have been more 
popular than the "Seasons.'' "It is almost stale to remark," observes 
Campbell, " the beauties of a poem so universally felt; the truth and genial 
interest with which he carries us through the life of the year; the harmony 
of succession which he gives to the casual phenomena of nature ; his pleasing 
transition from native to foreign scenery ; and the soul of exalted and un- 
feigned benevolence which accompanies his prospects of the creation. It is 
but equal justice to say that, amidat the feeling and fancy of the ' Seasons,' 
we meet with interruptions of declamation, heavy narrative, and unhappy 
digression." 

But though Thomson's merits as a descriptive poet are of the first order; 
though " he looks with the eye which nature bestows only on a poet, and 
with a mind that at once comprehends the vast, and attends to the minute,'' 
yet his greatest charm, and that which makes him so popular with all classes 
is, that he looks also with a heart that feels for all mankind. As has been 
well said, "his sympathies are universal." His touching allusions to the 
conditions of the poor and suffering; to the hapless state of bird and beast in 
winter ; the description of the peasant perishing in the snow ; the Siberian 
exile, or the Arab pilgrims, all are marked with that humanity and true 
feeling which show that the poet's virtues " formed the magic of his song." 
The genuine impulses under which he wrote, he has expressed in one noble 
stanza in the " Castle of Indolence:" — 

I care not, Fortune, what you me deny ; 
You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace, 
You cannot shut the window's of the sky, 
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face ; 
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace 
The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve : 
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, 
And I their toys to the great children leave ; 
Of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave. 

SUMMER EVENING. 

Confessed from yonder slow-extinguished clouds, 
All ether softenmg, sober evening takes 
Her wonted station in the middle air ; 
A thousand shadows at her beck. First this 
She sends on earth ; then that of deeper dye 
Steals soft behind ; and then a deeper still. 
In circle following circle, gathers round, 
To close the face of things. A fresher gale 



1727-1760.] THOMSON. 421 

Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream, 
Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn ; 
While the quail clamors for his running mate. 
Wide o'er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze, 
A whitening shower of vegetable down 
Amusive floats. The kind impartial care 
Of nature naught disdains : thoughtful to feed 
Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year, 
From field to field the feathered seeds she 'wings. 

His folded flock secure, the shepherd home 
Hies merry-hearted ; and by turns relieves 
The ruddy milkmaid of her brimming pail ; 
The beauty whom perhaps his witless heart — 
Unknowing what the joy-mixed anguish means — 
Sincerely loves, by that best language shown 
Of cordial glances, and obliging deeds. 
Onward they pass o'er many a panting height, 
And valley sunk, and unfrequented ; where 
At fall of eve the fairy people throng, 
In various games and revelry, to pass 
The summer night, as village stories tell. 
But far about they wander from the grave 
Of him whom his ungentle fortune urged 
Against his own sad breast to lift the hand 
Of impious violence. The lonely tower 
Is also shunned; whose mournful chambers hold — 
So night-struck fancy dreams — the yelling ghost. 

Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge. 
The glowworm lights his gem ; and through the dark 
A moving radiance twinkles. Evening yields 
The world to night ; not in her winter robe 
Of massy Stygian woof, but loose arrayed 
In mantle dun. A faint erroneous ray. 
Glanced from the imperfect surfaces of things. 
Flings half an image on the straining eye; 
While wavering woods, and villages, and streams, 
And rocks, and mountain -tops, that long retained 
The ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene, 
Uncertain if beheld. 



THE VARIOUS SUFFERINGS IN WINTER. 

Ah, little think the gay licentious proud, 
Whom pleasure, power and affluence surround ; 
They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth, 
And wanton, often cruel, riot waste ; 
Ah, little think they, while they dance along, 
How many feel, this very moment, death 
And all the sad variety of pain. 
How many sink in the devouring flood. 
Or more devouring flame. How many bleed, 
By shameful variance betwixt man and man. 



422 THOMSON. [GEORGE II. 

How many pine in want and dungeon glooms ; 
Shut from the common air, and common use 
Of their own limbs. How many drink the cup 
Of baleful grief, or eat the bitter bread 
Of misery. Sore pierced by wintry winds, 
How many shrink into the sordid hut 
Of cheerless poverty. How many shake 
With all the fiercer tortures of the mind, 
Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse; 
Whence tumbled headlong from the height of life, 
They furnish matter for the tragic muse. 
Even in the vale, where wisdom loves to dwell, 
With friendship, peace, and contemplation joined, 
How many, racked with honest passions, droop 
In deep retired distress. How many stand 
Around the death-bed of their dearest friends, 
And point the parting anguish. Thought fond man 
Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills, 
That one incessant struggle render life 
One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate, 
Vice in his high career would stand appalled, 
And heedless rambling impulse learn to think; 
The conscious heart of charity would warm, 
And her wide wish benevolence dilate ; 
The social tear would rise, the social sigh; 
And into clear perfection, gradual bliss, 
Refining still, the social passions work. 



MORAL OF THE SEASONS. 

Tis done ! dread Winter spreads his latest glooms, 
And reigns tremendous o'er the conquer "d year. 
How dead the vegetable kingdom lies ! 
How dumb the tuneful ! horror wide extends 
His desolate domain. Behold, fond man ! 
See here thy pictur'd life ; pass some few years, 
Thy flowering Spring, thy Summer's ardent strength, 
Thy sober Autumn fading into age. 
And pale concluding Winter comes at last. 
And shuts the scene. Ah ! whither now are fled 
Those dreams of greatness ? those unsolid hopes 
Of happiness ? those longings after fame ? 
Those restless cares? those busy bustling days? 
Those gay-spent, festive nights ? those veering thoughts, 
Lost between good and ill, that shar'd thy life ? 
All now are vanish'd ! Virtue sole survives, 
Immortal, never-failing friend of man. 
His guide to happiness on high. And see ! 
'Tis come, the glorious morn ! the second birth 
Of heaven and earth ! awakening Nature hears 
The new-creating word, and starts to life, 



1727-1760.] THOMSON. 423 

In every heightened form, from pain and death 

For ever free. The great eternal scheme, 

Involving all, and in a perfect whole 

Uniting, as the prospect wider spreads, 

To reason's eye refin'd, clears up apace. 

Ye vainly wise ! ye blind presumptuous I now, 

Confounded in the dust, adore that Power 

And Wisdom oft arraign'd : see now the cause, 

Why unassuming worth in secret liv'd, 

And died, neglected : why the good man's share 

In life was gall and bitterness of soul : 

Why the lone widow and her orphans pin'd 

In starving solitude 5 while luxury. 

In palaces, lay straining her low thought, 

To form unreal wants : why heaven-born truth, 

And moderation fair, wore the red marks 

Of superstition's scourge : why licens'd pain. 

That cruel spoiler, that embosom'd foe, 

Embitter'd all our bliss. Ye good distress'd! 

Ye noble few! who here unbending stand 

Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up a while. 

And what your bounded view, which only saw 

A little part, deem'd evil is no more : 

The storms of Wintry Time will quickly pass, 

And one unbounded Spring encircle all. 



HYMN ON THE SEASONS. 

These, as they change. Almighty Father, these 
Are but the varied God. The rolling year 
Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring 
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. 
Wide flush the fields ; the softening air is balm ; 
Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles ; 
And every sense and every heart is joy. 
Then comes thy glory in the Summer months. 
With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun 
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year : 
And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks, 
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve. 
By brooks and groves in hollow-whispering gales. 
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined. 
And spreads a common feast for all that lives. 
In Winter awful thou! with clouds and storms 
Around thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled, 
Majestic darkness! On the whirlwind's wing 
Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore. 
And humblest nature with thy northern blast. 

Mysterious round ! what skill, what force divine. 
Deep-felt, in these appear ! a simple train 
Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art, 
Such beauty and beneficence combined ; 



424 THOMSON. [george II. 

Shade unperceived, so softening into shade j 
And all so forming a harmonious whole, 
That, as they still succeed, they ravish still. 
But wandering oft, with rude unconscious gaze, 
Man marks not thee, marks not the mighty hand 
That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres ; 
Works in the secret deep ; shoots steaming thence 
The fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring; 
Flings from the sun direct the flaming day; 
Feeds every creature; hurls the tempest forth, 
And, as on earth this grateful change revolves, 
With transport touches all the springs of life. 

Nature, attend ! join, every living soul 
Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, 
In adoration join ; and ardent raise 
One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales, 
Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes. 
Oh talk of Him in solitary glooms. 
Where o'er the rock the scarcely waving pine 
Fills the brown shade with a religious awe. 
And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar, 
Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaveu 
The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. 
His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills; 
And let me catch it as I muse along. 
Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound; 
Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze 
Along the vale; and thou majestic main, 
A secret world of wonders in thyself, 
Sound His stupendous praise, whose greater voice 
Or bids you roar, or bids your roaring fall. 
So roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers. 
In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts, 
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints. 
Y'^e forests bend, ye harvests wave to Him; 
Breathe your still song into the reapers heart, 
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon. 
Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep 
Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams ; 
Ye constellations, while your angels strike, 
Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre. 
Great source of day ! blest image here below 
Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide. 
From world to world, the vital ocean round, 
On nature write with every beam His praise. 
The thunder rolls : be hushed the prostrate world. 
While cloud to cloud returns the solenm hymn. 
Bleat out afresh, ye hills ; ye mossy rocks 
Retain the sound ; the broad responsive low, 
Ye valleys, raise ; for the Great Shepherd reigns, 
And his unsuifering kingdom yet will come. 
Ye woodlands, all awake ; a boundless song 
Burst from the groves; and when the restless day, 



1727-1760.] THOMSON. 425 

Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep, 

Sweetest of birds ! sweet Philomela, charm 

The listening shades, and teach the night His praise. 

Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles ; 

At once the head, the heart, the tongue of all. 

Crown the great hymn ! in swarming cities vast, 

Assembled men to the deep organ join 

The long resounding voice, oft breaking clear, 

At solemn pauses, through the swelling bass ; 

And, as each mingling flame increases each, 

In one united ardor rise to heaven. 

Or if you rather choose the rural shade, 

And find a fane in every sacred grove. 

There let the shepherd's lute, the virgin's lay, 

The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre. 

Still sing the God of seasons as they roll. 

For me, when I forget the darling theme, 

Whether the blossom blows, the Summer ray 

Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams, 

Or Winter rises in the blackening east — 

Be my tongue mute, my fancy paint no more, 

And, dead to joy. forget my heart to beat. 

Should fate command me to the farthest verge 
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes. 
Rivers unknown to song ; where first the sun 
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam 
Flames on the Atlantic isles, 'tis naught to me; 
Since God is ever present, ever felt. 
In the void waste as in the city full ; 
And where He vital breathes, there must be joy. 
When even at last the solemn hour shall come, 
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds, 
I cheerful will obey; there with new powers, 
Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go 
Where universal love not smiles around, 
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns ; 
From seeming evil still educing good. 
And better thence again, and better still. 
In Infinite progression. But I lose 
Myself in Him, in light ineffable ! 
Come, then, expressive silence, muse his praise. 



FROM THE " CASTLE OF INDOLENCE. 

mortal man, who livest here by toil. 
Do not complain of this thy hard estate ; 
That like an emmet thou must ever moil, 
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date ; 
And, certes, there is for it reason great; 
For, though sometimes it makes thee weep and wailj 
And curse thy star, and early drudge and late, 
Withouten that would come a heavier bale, 
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale. 



426 THOMSON. [gEORGE II. 

In lowly dale, fast by a river's side, 
With woody hill o'er hill encompassed round, 
A most enchanting wizard did abide. 
Than whom a fiend more fell is nowhere found. 
It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground ; 
And there a season atween June and May, 
Half pranked with spring, with summer Iialf imbrowned, 
A listless climate made, where, sooth to say, 
No living wight could work, ne cared even for play. 

Was nought around but images of rest ; 
Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between; 
And flowery beds that slumberous influence kest, 
From poppies breathed ; and beds of pleasant green, 
Where never yet was creeping creature seen. 
Meantime unnumbered glittering streamlets played. 
And hurled everywhere their waters sheen ; 
That, as they bickered through the sunny glade. 
Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made. 

Joined to the prattle of tlie purling rills, 
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale, 
And flocks loud bleating from the distant hills, 
And vacant shepherds piping in the dale: 
And now and then sweet Philomel would wail. 
Or stock-doves 'plain amid the forest deep. 
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale ; 
And still a coil the gra-ishopper did keep ; 
Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep. 

Thither continual pilgrims crowded still. 
From all the roads of earth that pass there by; 
For, as they chanced to breathe on neighboring hill, 
The freshness of this valley smote their eye. 
And drew them ever and anon more nigh ; 
Till clustering round the enchanter false they hung, 
Ymolten with his syren melody ; 
While o'er the enfeebling lute his hand he flung, 
And to the trembluig chords these tempting verses sung : 

" Behold ! ye pilgrims of this earth, behold ! 
See all but man with unearned pleasure gay : 
See her bright robes the butterfly mifold, 
Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May ! 
What youthful bride can equal her array? 
Who can with her for easy pleasure vie 1 
From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray, 
From floM^er to flower on balmy gales to fly, 
Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky. 

" Behold the merry minstrels of the morn, 
The swarming songsters of the careless grove, 
Ten thousand throats ! that from the flowering thorn, 
Hymn their good God, and carol sweet of love. 
Such grateful kindly raptures them emove : 



1727-1760.] THOMSON. 427 

They neither plough, ne sow, ne, fit for flail, 
E'er to the barn the nodding sheaves they drove j 
Yet theirs each harvest dancing in the gale, 
Whatever crowns the hill, or smiles along the vale. 

" Come, ye who still the cumbrous load of life 
Push hard up hill; but as the farthest steep 
You trust to gain, and put an end to strife, 
Down thunders back the stone with mighty sweep, 
And hurls your labors to the valleys deep, 
For ever vain ; come, and, withouten fee, 
I in oblivion will your sorrows steep. 
Your cares, your toils, will steep you in a sea 
Of full delight ; oh come, ye weary wights, to me ! 

" With me you need not rise at early dawn, 
To pass the joyless day in various stounds ; 
Or, louting low, on upstart fortune fawn, 
And sell fair honor for some paltry pounds ; 
Or through the city take your dirty rounds, 
To cheat, and dun, and lie, and visit pay, 
Now flattering base, now giving secret wounds : 
Or prowl in human courts of law for human prey^ 
In venal senate thieve, or rob on broad highway. 

" No cocks, with me, to rustic labor call, 
From village on to village sounding clear : 
To tardy swain no shrill- voiced matrons squall ^ 
No dogs, no babes, no wives, to stun your ear ; 
No hammers thump ; no horrid blacksmith fear j 
No noisy tradesmen your sweet slumbers start, 
With sounds that are a misery to hear : 
But all is calm, as would delight the heart 
Of Sybarite of old, all nature, and all art. 

" What, what is virture, but repose of mind, 
A pure ethereal calm, that knows no storm ; 
Above the reach of wild ambition's wind. 
Above the passions that this world deform, 
And torture man, a proud malignant worm ? 
But here, instead, soft gales of passion play, 
And gently stir the heart, thereby to form 
A quicker sense of joy; as breezes stray 
Across the enlivened skies, and make them still more gay. 

" The best of men have ever loved repose : 
They hate to mingle in the filthy fray ; 
Where the soul sours, and gradual rancor grows, 
Imbittered more from peevish day to day. 
Even those whom Fame has lent her fairest ray. 
The most renowned of worthy wights of yore. 
From a base world at last have stolen away : 
So Scipio, to the soft Cumsean shore 
Retiring, tasted joy he never knew before. 



428 WATTS. [george II. 

" Oh, grievous folly ! to heap up estate, 
Losing the days you sec beneath the sun ; 
When, sudden, comes blind unrelenting fate, 
And gives the untasted portion you have won, 
With ruthless toil, and many a wretch undone, 
To those who mock you gone to Pluto's reign, 
There with sad ghosts to pine, and shadows dun : 
But sure it is of vanities most vain, 
To toil for what you here untoiling may obtain." 



ISAAC WATTS, 1G74— 1748. 

Isaac Watts, whose reputation as a prose writer and as a poet, is as 
wide as the world of letters, was born at Southampton on the 17th of July, 
1674. At the age of but four years he began to study the Latin language ; 
but as he was a "dissenter" from the "established" church, he could not 
look forward to an education in either of the great universities, and therefore, 
at the age of sixteen, he was placed under the care of the Rev. Thomas 
Rowe, who had charge of an academy in London. At the age of twenty 
he returned to his father's house, and spent two years in studying for the 
ministry. At the close of this period he accepted the invitation of Sir John 
Hartopp to reside with him as tutor to his son, and remained with him five 
years, devoting most of his time to a critical knowledge of the Greek and 
Hebrew Scriptures, and entering, during the last year, upon the duties of 
his profession. 

In 1G98 he was chosen as an assistant to Dr. Chauncey, pastor of an In- 
dependent church in Southampton, and on his death, 1702, was elected to 
succeed him. Soon after entering upon his office he was attacked by a 
dangerous illness, from which he but very slowly recovered. In 1712 he 
was again seized with a fever so violent and of so long continuance, that it left 
him in a feeble state for the rest of his life. In this state he found in Sir 
Thomas Abney a friend such as is not often to be met with. This gentle- 
man received him into his own house, where he remained an inmate of the 
family for thirtt^-six years, that is, to the end of his life, where he was 
treated the whole time with all the kindness that friendship could prompt, 
and all the attention that respect could dictate.' Here he devoted all the 
time that his health would allow to the composition of his various works, 

* " A coalition like this — a state in which the notions of patronage and de- 
pendence were overpowered by the perception of reciprocal benefits, deserves 
a particular memorial." — Dr. Johnson. Accordingly the great biographer has 
given in his life of Watts a long extract from Dr. Gibbons' touching account 
of Watts' residence in this family, and then adds: " If this quotation has ap- 
peared long, let it be considered that it comprises an account of six-and-thirty 
years, and those the years of Dr. Watts." 



1727-1760.] WATTS. 429 

and to his official functions ; and when increasing weakness compelled him 
to relinquish both, his congregation would not accept his resignation, but, 
while they elected another pastor, continued to him the salary he had been 
accustomed to receive. On the 25th of November, 1748, without a pain or 
a struggle, this great and good man breathed his last.i 

In his literary character. Dr. Watts may be considered as a poet, a philo- 
sopher and a theologian. As a poet, if he takes not the very first rank in 
the imaginative, the creative, or the sublime, he has attained what the 
greatest might well envy, — a universality of fame. He is emphatically the 
classic poet of the religious world, wherever the EngUsh language is known. 
His version of the Psalms, his three books of Hymns, and his " Divine 
Songs for Children," have been more read and committed to memory, have 
exerted more holy influences, and made more lasting impressions for good 
upon the human heart, and have called forth more fervent aspirations for the 
joys and the happiness of heaven, than the productions of any other poet, 
perhaps it would not be too strong to say than all other poets, (the sacred 
bards of course excepted,) living or dead. 

As a philosopher, he has the rare merit of always being practically useful, 
especially in the education of youth. His " Logic, or Right Use of Reason," 
was for a long time a text-book in the Enghsh Universities ; and of his 
" Improvement of the Mind," no happier eulogium can be given than that 
by Dr. Johnson i^ " Few books," says the sage, " have been perused by me 
with greater pleasure than this ; and whoever has the care of instructing 
others may be charged whh deficiency if this book is not recommended." 

As a theologian, the compositions of Watts are very numerous, and 
"every page," says Dr. Drake, "displays his unaffected piety, the purity 
of his principles, the mildness of his disposition, and the great goodness of 
his heart. The style of all his works is perspicuous, correct, and frequently 
elegant ; and happily for mankind, his labors have been translated and dis- 
persed with a zeal that does honor to human nature ; for there are probably 
few persons who have studied the writings of Dr. Watts without a wish for 
improvement ; without an effort to become wiser or better members of 



^ When he was almost worn out by his infirmities, he observed, in a con- 
versation with a friend, that " he remembered an aged minister used to say 
that the most learned and knowing Christians, when they come to die, have 
only the same plain promises of the Gospel for their support, as the common 
and unlearned." " So," said Watts, «I find it. It is the plain promises of 
the Gospel that are my support; and I bless God they are plain promises, and 
do not require much labor and pains to understand them, for I can do nothing 
now but look into my Bible for some promise to support me, and live upon 
that." 

2 « He is one of the few poets," says Dr. Johnson, << with whom youth and 
ignorance may be safely pleased ; and happy will be that reader whose mind 
is disposed, by his verses or his prose, to copy his benevolence to man and 
his reverence to God." 

"" Read his life in Drake's Essays — Johnson's Life — Memoir, by Southey™ 
Memoirs, by Thomas Gibson. 



43d WATTS. [GEORGE II. 



A SUMMER EVENING. 

How fine has the clay been, how bright was the sun, 
How lovely and joyful the course that he run, 
Though he rose in a mist when his race he begun, 

And there follow"d some droppings of rain ! 
But now the fair traveller's come to the west, 
His rays are all gold, and his beauties are best ; 
He paints the sky gay as he sinks to his rest. 

And foretells a bright rising again- 
Just such is the Christian; his course he begins, 
Like the sun in a mist, when he mourns for his sins, 
And melts into tears ; then he breaks out and shines, 

And travels his heav'nly way : 
But when he comes nearer to finish his race, 
Like a fine setting sun, he looks richer in grace. 
And gives a sure hope at the end of his days. 

Of rising in brighter array. 

THE ROSE. 

How fair is the rose ! what a beautiful flower. 

The glory of April and May! 
But the leaves are beginning to fade in an hour, 

And they wither and die in a day. 

Yet the rose has one powerful virtue to boast, 

AlxDve all the flowers of the field ; 
When its leaves are all dead, and its fine colors lost, 

StiU how sweet a perfume it will yield! 

So frail is the youth and the beauty of men, 
Though they bloom and look gay like the rose 5 

But all our fond cares to preserve them is vain, 
Time kills them as fast as he goes. 

Then Til not be proud of my youth nor my beauty, 
Since both of them wither and fade ; 

But gain a good name by well-doing my duty; 
This will scent like a rose when I'm dead. 



FEW HAPPY MATCHES. 

Say mighty Love, and teach my song. 
To whom thy sweetest joys belong, 

And who the happy pairs 
Whose yieldiiig hearts, and joining hands. 
Find blessings twisted with their bands, 

To soften all their cares. 

Not the wild herd of nymphs and swains, 
That thoughtless fly into thy chains, 
As custom leads the way: 



1727-1760.] WATTS. 431 

If there be bliss without design, 
Ivies and oaks may grow and twine, 
And be as blest as they. 

Not sordid souls of earthy mould, 
Who drawn by kindred charms of gold 

To dull embraces move : 
So two rich mountains of Peru 
May rush to wealthy marriage too, 

And make a world of love. 

Not the mad tribe that hell inspires 
With wanton flames ; those raging fires 

The pm-er bliss destroy : 
On ^tna"s top let Furies wed, 
And sheets of lightning dress the bed 

T' improve the burning joy. 

Nor the dull pairs whose marble forms 
None of the melting passions warms. 

Can mingle hearts and hands : 
Logs of green wood that quench the coals, 
Are marry'd just like Stoic souls, 

With osiers for their bands. 

Not minds of melancholy strain, 
Still silent, or that still complain. 

Can the dear bondage bless : 
As well may heavenly concerts spring 
From two old lutes with neer a string, 

Or none besides the bass. 

Nor can the soft enchantments hold 
Two jarring souls of angry mould, 

The rugged and the keen: 
Samson's young foxes might as Vy^ell 
In bonds of cheerful wedlock dwell, 

With firebrands ty'd between. 

Nor let the cruel fetters bind 
A gentle to a savage mind ^ 

For Love abhors the sight: 
Loose the fierce tiger from the deer, 
For native rage and native fear 

Rise and forbid delight. 

Two kindest souls alone must meet, 
'Tis friendship makes the bondage sweet. 

And feeds their mutual loves : 
Bright Venus on her rolhng throne 
Is drawn by gentlest birds alone, 

And Cupids yoke the doves. 



432 WATTS. [george II. 



THE PROSPECT OF HEAVEN. 

There is a laiid of pure delight, 
Where saints immortal reign ; 

Infinite day excludes the night, 
And pleasures banish pain. 

There everlasting spring abides, 
And never withering flowers : 

Death, like a narrow sea, divides 
This heavenly land from ours. 

Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood 

Stand drest in living green ; 
So to the Jews old Canaan stood, 

While Jordan rolled between. 

But timorous mortals start and shrink 

To cross this narrow sea, 
And linger, shivering on the brink, 

And fear to launch away. 

O could we make our doubts remove, — 
Those gloomy doubts that rise, — 

And see the Canaan that we love, 
With unbeclouded eyes. 

Could we but climb where Moses stood, 
And -^i-CW the landscape o'er, 

Not Jordan's stream nor death's cold flood 
Should fright us from the shore. 

Pure are the joys above the sky. 

And all the region peace ; 
No wanton lips nor envious eye 

Can see or taste the bliss. 



LOOKING UPWARD. 

The heavens invite mine eye, 
The stars salute me round ; 

Father, I blush, I mourn to lie 
Thus grovelling on the ground. 

My warmer spirits move, 
And make attempts to fly ; 

I wish aloud for wings of love 
To raise me swift and high 

Beyond those crystal vaults. 
And all their sparkling balls ; 

They're but the porches to thy courts, 
And paintings on thy walls. 

Vain world, farewell to you; 
Heaven is my native air : 



1727-1760.] WATTS. 433 

I bid my friends a short adieu, 
Impatient to be there. 

' I feel my powers released 

From their old fleshy clod ; 
Fair guardian, bear me up in haste, 
And set me near my God, 



SEEKING A DIVINE CALM IN A RESTLESS WORLD. 

Eternal Mind, who rul'st the fates 
Of dying realms, and rising states. 

With one unchanged decree ; 
While we admire thy vast affairs. 
Say, can our little trifling cares 

Afibrd a smile to thee? 

Thou scatterest honors, crowns and gold : 
We fly to seize, and fight to hold 

The bubbles and the ore : 
So emmets struggle for a grain ; 
So boys their petty wars maintain 

For shells upon the shore. 

Here a vain man his sceptre breaks. 
The next a broken sceptre takes. 

And warriors win and lose ; 
This rolling world will never stand, 
Plunder'd and snatch'd from hand to hand, 

As power decays or grows. 

Earth's but an atom : greedy swords 
Carve it among a thousand lords 5 

And yet they can't agree : 
Let greedy swords still fight and slay; 
I can be poor : but, Lord, I pray 

To sit and smile with thee. 



LAUNCHING INTO ETERNITY. 

It was a brave attempt! adventurous he. 
Who in the first ship broke the unknown sea: 
And, leaving his dear native shores behind, 
Trusted his life to the licentious wind, 
I see the surging brine : the tempest raves : 
He on a pine-plank rides across the waves. 
Exulting on the edge of thousand gaping graves : 
He steers the winged boat, and shifts the sails, 
Conquers the flood, and manages the gales. 

Such is the soul that leaves this mortal land 
Fearless when the great Master gives connnand. 
Death is the storm: she smiles to hear it roar, 
28 



434 WATTS. [george II , 

And bids the tempest waft her from the shore: 

Then with a skilful helm she sweeps the seas, 

And manages the raging storm with ease; 

(Her faith can govern death) she spreads her wings ^ 

Wide to the wind, and as she sails she sings, > 

And loses by degrees the sight of mortal things. ) 

As the shores lessen, so her joys arise, 

The waves roll gentler, and the tempest dies; 

Now vast eternity fills all her sight, ^ 

She floats on the broad deep with infinite delight, > 

The seas forever calm, the skies forever bright. ) 



GENERAL DIRECTIONS RELATING TO OUR IDEAS.' 

Direction I. — Furnish yourselves ivith a rich variety of 
ideas; acquaint yourselves with things ancient and modern; 
things natural, civil and religious ; things domestic and na- 
tional ; things of your native land, and of foreign countries ; 
things present, past and future ; and, above all, be well ac- 
quainted with God and yourselves ; learn animal nature, and 
the workings of your own spirits. 

The way of attaining such an extensive treasure of ideas, is, 
with diligence to apply yourself to read the best books; con- 
verse with the most knowing and the wisest of men, and en- 
deavor to improve by every person in whose company you 
are ; suffer no hour to pass away in a lazy idleness, in imper- 
tinent chattering, or useless trifles : visit other cities and coun- 
tries when you have seen your own, under the care of one 
who can teach you to protit by travelling, and to make wise 
observations ; indulge a just curiosity in seeing the wonders of 
art and nature ; search into things yourselves, as well as learn 
them from others ; be acquainted with men as well as books ; 
learn all things as much as you can at first hand; and let as 
many of your ideas as possible be the representations of things, 
and not merely the representations of other men's ideas : thus 
your soul, like some noble building, shall be richly furnished 
with original paintings, and not with mere copies. 

Direction II. — Use the most proper methods to retain that 
treasure of ideas ichich you have acquired; for the mind is 
ready to let many of them slip, unless some pains and labor 
be taken to fix them upon the memory. 

And more especially let those ideas" be laid up and preserved 
with the greatest care, which are most directly suited, either to 
your eternal welfare as a Christian, or to your particular station 

* "Logic, or the Right Use of Reason," chap. v. 



1727-1760.] WATTS. 435 

and profession in this life ; for though the former rule recom- 
mends an universal acquaintance with things, yet it is but a 
more general and superficial knowledge that is required or 
expected of any man, in things which are utterly foreign to his 
own business ; but it is necessary you should have a more 
particular and accurate acquaintance with those things that 
refer to your peculiar province and duty in this life, or your 
happiness in another. 

There are some persons who never arrive at any deep, solid, 
or valuable knowledge in any science or any business of life, 
because they are perpetually fluttering over the surface of 
things in a curious and wandering search of infinite variety; 
ever hearing, reading, or asking after something new, but impa- 
tient of any labor to lay up and preserve the ideas they have 
gained. Their souls may be compared to a looking-glass, that 
wheresoever you turn it, it receives the images of all objects, 
but retains none. 

In order to preserve your treasure of ideas and the know- 
ledge you have gained, pursue these advices especially in your 
younger years. 

1. Recollect every day the things you have seen, or heard, 
or read, which may have made any addition to your under- 
standing: read the writings of God and men with diligence and 
perpetual reviews : be not fond of hastening to a new book, or 
a new chapter, till you have well fixed and established in your 
minds what was useful in the last : make use of your memory 
in this manner, and you will sensibly experience a gradual im- 
provement of it, while yau take care not to load it to excess. 

2. Talk over the things which you have seen, heard or 
learnt, with some proper acquaintance ; this will make a fresh 
impression upon your memory ; and if you have no fellow 
student at hand, none of equal rank with yourselves, tell it over 
to any of your acquaintance, where you can do it with pro- 
priety and decency ; and whether they learn anything by it or 
no, your own repetition of it will be an improvement to your- 
self : and this practice also will furnish you with a variety of 
words and copious language, to express your thoughts upon all 
occasions. 

3. Commit to writing some of the most considerable im- 
provements which you daily make, at least such hints as may 
recall them again to your mind, when perhaps they are vanished 
and lost. At the end of every week, or month, or year, you 
may review your remarks for these two reasons : First, to judge 
of your own improvement, when you shall find that many of 



1 



430 WATTS. [gEORGE II. 

your younger collections are either weak and trifling; or if 
they are just and proper, yet they are grown now so familiar 
to you, that you will thereby see your own advancement in 
knowledge. And in the next place what remarks you find 
there worthy of your riper observation, you may note them 
with a martrinal star, instead of transcribing them, as being 
worthy of your second year's review, when the others are 
neglected. 

To shorten something of this labor, if the books which you 
read are your oAvn, mark with a pen, or pencil, the most con- 
siderable things in llicm which you desire to remember. Thus 
you may read that book the second time over with half the 
trouble, by your eye running over the paragraphs which your 
pencil has noted. It is but a very weak objection against this 
practice to say, I shall spoil my book ; for I persuade myself 
that you did not buy it as' a bookseller, to sell it again for gain, 
but as a scholar to improve your mind by it; and if the mind 
be improved, your advantage is abundant, though your book 
yield less money to your executors. 

RULES OF IMPROVEMENT BY CONVERSATION.' 

1. If we would improve our minds by conversation, it is a 
great happiness to be acquainted loith persons wiser than our- 
selves. It is a piece of useful advice, therefore, to get the favor 
of their conversation frequently, as far as circumstances will 
allow : and if they happen to be a little reserved, use all oblig- 
ing methods to draw out of them what may increase your own 
knowledge. 

2. If you happen to be in company with a merchant or a 
sailor, a farmer or a mechanic, a milkmaid or a spinster, lead 
them into a discourse of the matters of their own peculiar 
province or profession; for every one knows, or should know, 

his own business best. In this sense a common mechanic is 
wiser than a philosopher. By this means you may gain some 
improvement in knowledge from every one you meet. 

3. Confine not yourself always to one sort of company, or 
to persons of the same party or opinion, either in matters of 
learning, religion, or the civil'life, lest if you should happen to 
be nursed up or educated in early mistake, you should be con- 
firmed and established in the same mistake, by conversing only 
with persons of the same sentiments. A free and general con- 

1 " The Improvement of the Mind," London, 1S09, p. 79. 



1727-1760.] WATTS. 437 

versation with men of very various countries and of different 
parties, opinions, and practices (so far as it may be done safely) 
is of excellent use to undeceive us in many wrong judgments 
which we may have framed, and to lead us into juster thoughts. 

4. In mixed coinpany among acquaintance and strangers^ 
endeavor to learn something from all. Be swift to hear, but 
be cautious of your tongue, lest you betray your ignorance, and 
perhaps offend some of those who are present too. 

5. Believe that it is possible to learn something from per- 
sons much below yourself We are all short-sighted creatures ; 
our views are also narrow and limited; we often see but one 
side of a matter, and do not extend our sight far and wide 
enough to reach everything that has a connection with the thing 
we talk of: we see but in part, and hioiv but in part, there- 
fore it is no wonder we form not right conclusions, because we 
do not survey the whole of any subject or argument. 

6. To make conversation more valuable and useful, whether 
it be in a designed or accidental visit, among persons of the 
same or of different sexes, after the necessary salutations are 
finished, and the stream of common talk begins to hesitate, or 
runs flat and low, let some one person take a book which may 
be agreeable to the whole company, and by common consent 
let him read in it ten lines, or a paragraph or two, or a few 
pages, till some word or sentence gives an occasion for any of 
the company to offer a thought or two relating to that subject. 
Interruption of the reader should be no blame, for conversation 
is the business ; whether it be to confirm what the author says, 
or to improve it; to enlarge upon or to correct it; to object 
against it, or to ask any question that is a-kin to it ; and let 
every one that please add their opinion and promote the con- 
versation. When the discourse sinks again, or diverts to 
trifles, let him that reads pursue the page, and read on further 
paragraphs or pages, till some occasion is given by a word or 
sentence for a new discourse to be started, and that with the 
utmost ease and freedom. Such a method as this would pre- 
vent the hours of a visit from running all to waste ; and by 
this means, even among scholars, they will seldom find occa- 
sion for that too just and bitter reflection, I have lost my time 
in the company of the learned. 

By such practice as this, young ladies may very honorably 
and agreeably improve their hours: while one applies herself 
to reading, the others employ their attention, even among the 
various artifices of the needle ; but let all of them make their 
occasional remarks or inquiries. This will guard a great deal 



438 WATTS. [george II. 

of that precious time from modisli trilling impcrlinence or scan- 
dal, which might otherwise afford matter for painful repentance. 
Observe this rule in general, whensoever it lies in your 
power to lead the conversation, let it be directed to some pro- 
Jitable point of knojc/edife or practice, so far as may be done 
with decency ; and let not the discourse and the hours be suf- 
fered to run loose without aim or design : and when a subject 
is started, pass not hastily to another, before you have brought 
the present theme or discourse to some tolerable issue, or a 
joint consent to drop it. 

7. Attend ivith .sincere diligence ivhile any one of the com- 
pany in declaring his sense of the question proposed ; hear the 
argument with patience, though it difler ever so much from 
your sentiments, for you yourself are very desirous to be heard 
with patience by others who dilfer from you. Let not your 
tlioughts be active and busy all the while to find out something 
to contradict, and by what means to oppose the speaker, espe- 
cially in matters which are not l)roughi to an issue. This is a 
frequent and unhappy temper and practice. You should rather 
be intent and solicitous to take up the mind and meaning of 
the speaker, zealous to seize and approve all that is true in his 
discourse; nor yet should you want courage to oppose where 
it is necessary ; but let your modesty and patience, and a 
friendly temper, be as conspicuous as your zeal. 

8. As you should carry about with you a constant and sin- 
cere sense of your own ignorance, so you should not be afraid 
nor ashamed to confess this ignorance, by taking all proper 
opportunities to ask and inquire for farther information ; whe- 
ther it be the meaning of a word, the nature of a thing, the 
reason of a proposition, or the custom of a nation. Never 
remain in ignorance for want of asking. 

9. Be not too forward, especially in the younger part of 
life, to determine any question in company ivith an infallible 
and peremptory sentence, woY speak with assuming airs, and 
with a decisive tone of voice. A young man in the presence 
of his elders should rather hear and attend, and weigh the argu- 
ments which are brought for the proof or refutaUon of any 
doubtful proposition; and when it is your turn to speak, pro- 
pose your thoughts rather in way of inquiry. 

10. As you may sometimes raise inquiries for your own 
instruction and improvement, and draw out the learning, wis- 
dom, and fine sentiments of your friends, who perhaps may be 
too reserved or modest; so at other times if you perceive a 
person unskilful in the matter of debate, you may, by questions 



1727-1760.] MIDDLETON. 439 

aptly proposed in the Socratic method, lead him into a clearer 
knowledge of the subject: then you become his instructor, in 
such a manner as may not appear to make yourself his superior. 

11. Take heed of affeeiing ahvays to shine in company 
above the rest, and to display the riches of your own under- 
standing or your oratory, as though you would render yourself 
admirable to all that are present. This is seldom well taken 
in polite company ; much less should you use such forms of 
speech as would insinuate the ignorance or dulness of those 
with whom you converse. 

12. Banish utterly out of all conversation, and especially 
out of all learned and intellectual conference, every thing that 
tends to provoke passion, or raise afire in the blood. Let no 
sharp language, no noisy exclamation, no sarcasms or biting 
jests be heard among you ; no perverse or invidious conse- 
quences be drawn from each other's opinions, and imputed to 
the person. All these things are enemies to friendship, and 
the ruin of free conversation. The impartial search of truth 
requires all calmness and serenity, all temper and candor ; mu- 
tual instruction can never be attained in the midst of passion, 
pride, and clamor, unless we suppose, in the midst of such a 
scene, there is a loud and penetrating lecture read by both sides 
on the folly and shameful inlirmities of human nature. 

1.3. To conclude : when you retire from company, then 
converse with yourself in solitude, and inquire what you have 
learnt for the improvement of your understanding, or for the 
rectifying your inclinations, for the increase of your virtues, 
or the meliorating your conduct and behavior in any future 
parts of life. If you have seen some of your company candid, 
modest, humble in their manner, wise and sagacious, just and 
pious in their sentiments, polite and graceful, as well as clear 
and strong in their expression, and universally acceptable and 
lovely in their behaviour, endeavor to impress the idea of all 
these upon your memory, and treasure them up for your imi- 
tation. 



CONYERS MIDDLETON, 1683—1750. 

CoNYEKs MiDDLETON, a Celebrated divine and critic, was the son of a 
clergyman, and born at Richmond, in Yorkshire, 1683. He was educated 
at Cambridge, and in 1717 received from the University the degree of Doc- 
tor of Divinity. His first published work was "A Full and Impartial Ac- 
count of all the late Proceedings in the University of Cambridge against Dr. 



440 MIDDLETON. [gEORGE II. 

Bentley," which, says Dr. Monk, "was the first published specimen of a 
fctyle, which, for elegance, purity and ease, yields to none in the whole 
compass of the English language." In 1724 he visited Italy, and having 
taken a close and near view of the ecclesiastical pomp and ceremonies of 
the Papal church, he published in 1729 his celebrated Letter from Rome, in 
which he attempted to show that "the religion of the present Romans was 
derived from that of their heathen ancestors," and that, in particular, the 
rites, ceremonies, dresses of the priests, and other matters in the Romish 
church, were taken from the pagan religion. It was received with great 
favor by the learned, and went through four editions in the author's lifetime. 
In 1741 appeared his greatest work, and that on which his fame chiefly 
rests, " The History of the Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero." It might more 
properly be called. The Life and Times of Cicero, since it is full not only 
in everything that personally relates to the illustrious Roman orator, but 
gives an admirable picture of the Republic, at the time he flourished. The 
style is remarkable for uniting clearness, strength, elegance and richness in 
an unusual degree, and the work may justly be considered as a model of 
composition in the department of biography. The characters of the most 
prominent men of the time, he draws up with consummate skill, judgment 
and taste ; and few historical works are more interesting and none more 
instructive. In 1745 he published an account of the various specimens of 
ancient art, which he had collected during his residence at Rome; and in 
1749, "A Free Inquiry into Miraculous Powers." This was immediately 
attacked by many of the clergy, who maintained that the tendency of the 
book was to destroy the authority of miracles in general: but Middleton 
disclaimed all such intention. After various controversies upon religious 
subjects with some of the clergy of the day, he expired on the 28th of July, 
1750. 



CICERO OFFERS HIMSELF TO THE BAR. 

Cicero had now run through all that course of discipline, 
which he lays down as necessary to form the complete orator : 
for, in his treatise on that suhject, he gives us his own senti- 
ments in the person of Crassus, on the institution requisite to 
that character ; declaring, that no man ought to pretend to it, 
without being previously acquainted with everything worth 
knowing in art or nature ; that this is implied in the very name 
of an orator, whose profession it is to speak upon every sub- 
ject which can be proposed to him ; and whose eloquence, 
without the knowledge of what he speaks, would be the prattle 
only and iinpertinence of children. He had learnt the rudiments 
of grammar, and languages, from the ablest teachers ; gone 
through the studies of humanity and the politer letters with the 
poetArchias; been instructed in philosophy by the principal 
professors of each sect ; Phaedrus the Epicurean, Philo the 



1727-1760.] MiDDLETOX. 441 

Academic, Diodotus the Stoic ; acquired a perfect knowledge 
of the law, from the greatest lawyers, as well as the greatest 
statesmen of Rome, the two Scaevolas ; all which accomplish- 
ments were but ministerial and subservient to that on which his 
hopes and ambition were singly placed, the reputation of an 
orator: To qualify himself therefore particularly for this, he 
attended the pleadings of all the speakers of his time ; heard 
the daily lectures of the most eminent orators of Greece, and 
was perpetually composing somewhat at home, and declaiming 
under their correction : and that he might neglect nothing which 
could help in any degree to improve and polish his style, he 
spent the intervals of his leisure in the company of the ladies ; 
especially of those who were remarkable for a politeness of 
language, and whose fathers had been distinguished by a fame 
and reputation of their eloquence. 

Thus adorned and accomplished, he offered himself to the 
bar about the age of twenty-six ; not as others generally did, 
raw and ignorant of their business, and wanting to be formed 
to it by use and experience, but finished and qualified at once 
to sustain any cause which should be committed to him. 

After he had given a specimen of himself to the city, in seve- 
ral private causes, he undertook the celebrated defence of S. 
Roscius of Ameria, in his 27th year; the same age, as the 
learned have observed, in which Demosthenes first began to 
distinguish himself in Athens ; as if, in these geniuses of the 
first magnitude, that was the proper season of blooming towards 
maturity. 

As by this defence he acquired a great reputation in his 
youth, so he reflects upon it with pleasure in old age, and 
recommends it to his son, as the surest way to true glory and 
authority in his country ; to defend the innocent in distress, 
especially when they happen to be oppressed by the power of 
the great ; as I have often done, says he, in other causes, but 
particularly in that of Roscius against Sylla himself in the 
height of his power. A noble lesson to all advancers, to apply 
their talents to the protection of innocence and injured virtue ; 
and to make justice, not profit, the rule and end of their labors. 

CLOSE OF CICERo's CONSULSHIP. 

But before we close the account of the memorable events of 
this year, we must not omit the mention of one which distin- 
guished it afterwards as a particular era in the annals of Rome, 
the birth of Octavius, surnaraed Augustus, which happened 



442 MIDDLETON. [gEORGE II. 

on the twenty-lhird of September. Velleius calls it an accession 
of glory to Cicero's consulship : but it excites speculations 
rather of a different sort, on the inscrutable methods of Provi- 
dence, and the short-sighted policy of man, that in the moment 
when Rome was preserved from destruction, and its liberty 
thought to be established more firmly than ever, an infant 
should be thrown into the world, who, within the course of 
twenty years, effected what Cataline had attempted, and de- 
stroyed both Cicero and the repuljlir. If Kome could have 
been saved by human council, it would have been saved by the 
skill of Cicero: but its destiny was now approaching: for 
governments, like natural bodies, have, with the principles of 
their preservation, the seeds of ruin also essentially mixed in 
their constitution, which, after a certain period, begin to operate, 
and exert themselves to the dissolution of the vital frame. These 
seeds had long been fermenting in the bowels of the republic, 
when Octavius came, peculiarly formed by nature, and in- 
structed by art, to quicken their operation, and exalt them to 
maturity. 

Cicero's administration was now at an end, and nothing 
remained but to resign the consulship, according to custom, in 
an assembly of the people, and to take the usual oath, of his 
having discharged it witii fidelity. This was generally accom- 
panied with a speech from the expiring consul; and after such 
a year, and from such a speaker, the city was in no small ex- 
pectation of what Cicero would say to them: but Metellus, one 
of the new tribunes, who affected commonly to open their 
magistracy by some remarkable act, as a specimen of the mea- 
sures which they intended to pursue, resolved to disappoint 
both the orator and the audience: for when Cicero had mounted 
the rostra, and was ready to perform this last act of his ofHce, 
the tribune would not suffer him to speak, or to do anything 
more than barely to take the oath, declaring, that he who had 
put citizens to death unheard, ought not to be permitted to 
speak for himself: upon w^hich Cicero, who was never at a 
loss, instead of pronouncing the ordinary form of the oath, 
exalting the tone of his voice, swore out aloud, so as all the 
people might hear him, that he had saved the republic and the 
city from ruin; which the multitude below confirmed with an 
universal shout, and with one voice cried out, that what he had 
sworn was true. Thus the intended affront was turned, by 
his presence of mind, to his greater honor, and he was con- 
ducted from the forum to his house, with all possible demon- 
strations of respect by the whole city. 



1727-1760.] MIDDLETON. 443 

CHARACTER OF POMPEY. 

Pompey had early acquired the surname of the Great, by 
that sort of merit which, from the constitution of the republic, 
necessarily made him great ; a fame and success in war, supe- 
rior to what Rome had ever known in the most celebrated of 
her generals. He had triumphed at three several times over 
the three different parts of the known world, Europe, Asia, 
Africa ; and by his victories had almost doubled the extent, as 
well as the revenues, of the Roman dominion ; for, as he de- 
clared to the people on his return from the Mithridatic war, 
" he had found the lesser Asia the boundary, but left it the 
middle of their empire." He was about six years older than 
Caesar; and while Caesar, immersed in pleasures, oppressed 
with debts, and suspected by all honest men, was hardly able 
to show his head; Pompey was flourishing in the height of 
power and glory, and by the consent of all parties placed at the 
head of the republic. This was the post that his ambition 
seemed to aim at, to be the first man in Rome; the Leader, not 
the Tyrant of his country : for he more than once had it in 
his power to have made himself the master of it without any 
risk ; if his virtue, or his phlegm at least, had not restrained 
him : but he lived in a perpetual expectation of receiving, from 
the gift of the people, what he did not care to seize by force ; 
and, by fomenting the disorders of the city, hoped to drive them 
to the necessity of creating him Dictator. It is an observation 
of all the historians, that while Caesar made no difference of 
power, whether it was conferred or usurped: whether over 
those who loved, or those who feared him : Pompey seemed to 
value none but what was offered ; nor to have any desire to 
govern, but with the good will of the governed. What leisure 
he found from his wars, he employed in the study of polite 
letters, and especially of eloquence, in which he would have 
acquired great fame, if his genius had not drawn him to the 
more dazzling glory of arms : yet he pleaded several causes 
with applause, in the defence of his friends and clients ; and 
some of them in conjunction with Cicero. His language was 
copious and elevated ; his sentiments just ; his voice sw^eet ; 
his action noble, and full of dignity. But his talents were bet- 
ter formed for arms, than the gown : for though, in both, he 
observed the same discipline, a perpetual modesty, temperance, 
and gravity of outward behavior ; yet, in the license of camps, 
the example was more rare and striking. His person was ex- 
tremely graceful, and imprinting respect ; yet with an air of 



444 MIDDLETON. [oEORGE II. 

reserve and liaiightiness, which became the general belter than 
the citizen. His parts were plausible, rather than great; spe- 
cious railier than penetrating ; and his view of politics but 
narrow ; for his chief instrument of governing was dissimuh- 
tion ; yet he had not always the art to conceal his real senti- 
ments. As he was a better soldier than a statesman, so what 
he gained in the camp he usually lost in the city ; and though 
adored, when al)road,.was often alTronted and mortified at 
home; till the imprudent opposition of the senate drove him to 
that alliance with Crassus and Caesar, which proved fatal both 
to himself and the republic. He look in these loo, not as the 
partners, but the ministers rather of his power; that, by giving 
ihem some share with him, he might make his own authority 
uncontrollable: he had no reason to apprehend that they could 
ever j)rove his rivals; since neither of them had any credit or 
character of that kind which alone could raise them above th( 
laws ; a superior fame and experience in war, with the militia 
of the empire at their devotion: all this was purely his own: 
till, bv cherishing (.'a'sar, and throwing into his hands the only 
thing which he wanted, arms and military command, he madt 
him at last too strong for himself, and never bcffan to fear him. 
till it was too late : Cicero warmly dissuaded both his union 
and his breach with Ca?sar; and, after the rupture, as warmly 
still, the thou«Tht of giving him battle: if any of these counsels 
had been followed, Pompey had preserved his life and honor, 
and the republic its liberty. But he was urged to his fate by v. 
natural superstition, and attention to those vain auguries with 
which he was llattered by all the haruspices : he had seen the 
same temper in Marius and Sylla, and observed the happy 
effects of it : but they assumed it only out of policy, he out o; 
principle. They used it to animate their soldiers, when they 
had found a probable opportunity of fighting ; but he, against 
all prudence and probability, was encouraged by it to fight to 
his own ruin. He saw all his mistakes at last, when it was 
out of his power to correct them ; and in his wretched fiight 
from Pharsalia w^as forced to confess, that he had trusted too 
much to his hopes; and that Cicero had judged better, and 
seen farther into things than he. The resolution of seeking 
refuore in Egypt, finished the sad catastrophe of this great man: 
the father of the reigning prince had been highly obliged to him 
for his protection at Rome, and restoration to his kingdom : 
and the son had sent a considerable fleet to his assistance in 
the present war: but, in this ruin of his fortunes, what grati- 
tude was there to be expected from a court, governed by 



1727-1700.] BOLINGBROKE. 445 

eunuchs and mercenary Greeks? all whose politics turned, not 
on the honor of the king, but the establishment of their own 
power; which was likely to be eclipsed by the admission of 
Pompey. How happy had it been for him to have died in that 
sickness, when all Italy was putting up vows and prayers for 
his safety? or, if he had fallen by chance of war on the plains 
of Pharsalia, in the defence of his country's liberty, he had 
died still glorious, though unfortunate; but, as if he had been 
reserved for an example of the instability of human greatness, 
he, who a few days before commanded kings and consuls, and 
all the noblest of Rome, was sentenced to die by a council of 
slaves ; murdered by a base deserter ; cast out naked and head- 
less on the Egyptian strand; and when the whole earth, as 
Velleius says, had scarce been sufficient for his victories, could 
not find a spot upon it at last for a grave. 



HENRY ST. JOHN BOLINGBROKE, 1678—1751. 

Henky St. John, son of Sir Henry St. John, of Battersea, Surry county, 
was born October 1st, 1678. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, and 
after spending many years of dissipation on the continent, he was, on his 
return, elected to Parliament in 1701, when the Tories were in power. He 
was elevated to ihe peerage in 1712, by the title of Viscount Bolingbroke ; 
but soon after the death of Queen Anne, fearing the course which might be 
taken against him by the new administration, he fled to France. On the 
9th of August of the same year (1718) he was impeached by Walpole at the 
bar of the House of Lords of high treason, and other high crimes and mis- 
demeanors ; and as he failed to surrender himself to take his trial, a bill of 
attainder was passed against him by Parliament, on the 10th of September. 
In the mean time he showed what were his principles, and where his heart 
was, by entering the service of the Pretender, as secretary. In 1723 he 
obtained a full pardon, and returned to England : his property was restored 
to him, but he was excluded from the House of Lords. He then engaged in 
active opposition to the Whig ministry of Sir Robert Walpole, and published 
a great number of political tracts. 

In 1735 he suddenly withdrew to France, for reasons which have never 
been explained, and resided there seven years, during which time he pub- 
lished his " Letters on the Study of History," and a " Letter on the true 
Use of Retirem.ent." On the death of his father, 1742, he returned to take 
possession of the family estate at Battersea, and in 1749 published his " Let- 
ters on the Spirit of Patriotism," and the " Idea of a Patriot King." Most of 
his early friends, both hterary and political, of whom were Pope, Swift, Gay 
and Atterbury, were now gone, and he himself expired on the 15th of De= 



446 BOLINGBROKE. [gEORGE II. 

cember, 1751. He bequeathed all his manuscripts, "as a legacy for tra- 
ducing the memory of his own old friend Alexander Pope," to David Mallet,' 
a Scotchman, who, in 1754, published a complete edition of his lordship's 
works, in five volumes. Among them were found a series of Essays against 
revealed religion, which led to the caustic but just remark of Dr. Johnson, 
that "having loaded a blunderbuss, and pointed it against Christianity, he 
had not the courage to discharge it himself, but left half-a-crown to a hungry 
Scotchman to pull the trigger after his death." 

In Lord Bolingbroke's character as a man there is but little to respect, 
much to condemn. His writings are now but little read, and for their matter 
contain little that is worth reading. " He had no accurate or profound 
knowledge of any kind, and his reasonings and reflections, though they have 
often a certain speciousness, have rarely much solidity." As a rhetorician, 
however, he deserves some consideration in this work of ours, designed to 
mark the progress of English style, and to bring under our notice the best 
writers. His style was a happy medium between that of the scholar and 
that of the man of society — or rather it was a happy combination of the best 
qualities of both, " heightening the ease, freedom, fluency, and liveliness of 
elegant conversation, with many of the deeper and richer tones of the elo- 
quence of formal orations and books. The example he thus set has probably 
produced a very considerable eflfect in moulding the style of popular writing 
since his time. "2 



ABSURDITIES OF USELESS LEARNING. 

Some histories are to be read, some are to be studied, and 
some may be neglected entirely, not only without detriment, 
but witli advantage. Some are the proper objects of one man's 
curiosity, some of another's, and some of all men's; but all his- 
tory is not an object of curiosity for any man. He who im- 
properly, wantonly, and absurdly makes it so, indulges a sort 
of canine appetite ; the curiosity of one, like the hunger of the 
other, devours ravenously, and without distinction, whatever 

'■ There is not room here to go into the details of the controversy that arose 
from the base act of Mallet in maligning Pope, and the still baser feelings of 
Bolingbroke in first assenting to it, and afterwards rewarding it. Bolingbroke's 
pretended ground of offence was, that Pope, into whose hands he had placed 
his political tract, '< The Patriot King," for publication, and distribution 
among his own (Bolingbroke's) friends, had published more than he ought. 
But he knew that Pope did it purely from his admiration of the tract, and a 
desire to have it more generally known. The real cause, therefore, of Boling- 
broke's most ungrateful treatment of his old friend was, doubtless, that Pope 
had bequeathed his property in his printed works to Warburton, rather than 
to himself. For a more particular account of this, see E,oscoe's Pope, vol. i. 
p. 557. 

2 See also some remarks on his style in the 19th Lecture of Dr. Blair, and 
in Drake's Essays, vol. iv. p. 234. 



1727-1760.] BOLINGBROKE. 447 

falls in its way, but neither of them digests. They heap crudity 
upon crudity, and nourish and improve nothing but their dis- 
temper. Some such characters I have known, though it is not 
the most common extreme into which men are apt to fall. One 
of them I knew in this country. He joined to a more than 
athletic strength of body, a prodigious memory, and to both a 
prodigious industry. He had read almost constantly twelve or 
fourteen hours a day for five-and-twenty or thirty years, and 
had heaped together as much learning as could be crowded into 
a head. In the course of my acquaintance with him, I con- 
sulted him once or twice, not oftener; for I found this mass of 
learning of as little use to me as to the owner. The man was 
communicative enough ; but nothing was distinct in his mind. 
How could it be otherwise ? he had never spared time to think ; 
all was employed in reading. His reason had not the merit of 
common mechanism. When you press a watch, or pull a clock, 
they answer your question with precision; for they repeat ex- 
actly the hour of the day, and tell you neither more nor less 
than you desire to know. But when you asked this man a 
question, he overwhelmed you by pouring forth all that the 
several terms or words of your question recalled to his memory ; 
and if he omitted any thing, it was that very thing to which the 
sense of the whole question should have led him or confined 
him. To ask him a question was to wind up a spring in his 
memory, that rattled on with vast rapidity and confused noise, 
till the force of it was spent ; and you went away with all the 
noise in your ears, stunned and uninformed. 

He who reads with discernment and choice, will acquire less 
learning, but more knowledge; and as this knowledge is col- 
lected with design, and cultivated with art and method, it will 
be at all times of immediate and ready use to himself and 
others. 

Thus useful arms in magazines we place, 
All ranged in order, and disposed with grace; 
Nor thus alone the curious eye to please. 
But to be found, when need requires, with ease. 

You remember the verses, my lord, in our friend's Essay on 
Criticism, which was the work of his childhood almost ; but is 
such a monument of good sense and poetry, as no other, that I 
know, has raised in his riper years. 

He who reads without this discernment and choice, and re- 
solves to read all, will not have time, no, nor capacity either, 
to do any thing else. He will not be able to think, witliout 
which it is impertinent to read; nor to act, without which it is 



448 BOLINGBROKE. [gEORGE II. 

impertinent to think. He will assemble materials with much 
pains, and purchase them at much expense, and have neither 
leisure nor skill to frame them into proper scantlings, or to pre- 
pare them for use. To what purpose should he husband his 
time, or learn architecture ? he has no design to build. But 
then, to what purpose all these quarries of stone, all these 
mountains of sand and lime, all these forests of oak and deal? 



THE CHARACTER OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. 

Our Elizabeth was queen in a limited monarchy, and reigned 
over a people at all times more easily led than driven ; and at 
that time capable of being attached to their prince and their 
country, by a more generous principle than any of those which 
prevail in our days, by affection. There was a strong prero- 
gative then in being, and the crown was in possession of greater 
legal power. Popularity was, however, then, as it is now, and 
as it must be always in mixed government, the sole true founda- 
tion of that sufficient authority and influence, which other con- 
stitutions give the prince gratis, and independently of the people, 
but which a king of this nation must acquire. The wise queen 
saw it, and she saw, too, how much popularity depends on those 
appearances that depend on the decorum, the decency, the grace, 
and the propriety of behavior, of which we are speaking. A 
warm concern for the interest and honor of the nation, a tender- 
ness for her people, and a confidence in their affections, were 
appearances, that ran throuo^h her whole public conduct, and 
gave life and color to it. She did great things, and she knew 
how to set them off according to their full value, by her manner 
of doing them. In her private behavior she showed great affa- 
bility, she descended even to familiarity; but her familiarity was 
such as could not be imputed to her weakness, and was, there- 
fore, most justly ascribed to her goodness. Though a woman, 
she hid all that was womanish about her: and if a few equi- 
vocal marks of coquetry appeared on some occasions, they 
passed like flashes of lightning, vanished as soon as they were 
discerned, and imprinted no blot on her character. She had 
private friendships, she had favorites ; but she never suffered her 
friends to forget she was their queen. 

THE WORLD OUR COUNTRY. 

Whatever is best is safest; lies out of the reach of human 
power ; can neither be given nor taken away. Such is this 



1727-1760.] BOLINGBROKE. 449 

great and beautiful work of nature, the world. Such is the mind 
of man, which contemplates and admires the world, whereof it 
makes the noblest part. These are inseparably ours, and as 
long as we remain in one, we shall enjoy the other. Let us 
march, therefore, intrepidly wherever we are led by the course 
of human accidents. Wherever they lead us, on what coast 
soever we are thrown by them, we shall not find ourselves 
absolutely strangers. We shall meet with men and women, 
creatures of the same figure, endowed with the same faculties, 
and born under the same laws of nature. 

We shall see the same virtues and vices, flowing from the 
same principles, but varied in a thousand different and contrary 
modes, according to that infinite variety of laws and customs 
which is established for the same universal end, the preservation 
of society. We shall feel the same revolution of seasons, and 
the same sun and moon will guide the course of our year. 
The same azure vault, bespangled with stars, will be everywhere 
spread over our heads. There is no part of the world from 
whence we may not admire those planets which roll, like ours, 
in different orbits, round the same central sun; from whence 
we may not discover an object still more stupendous, that army 
of fixed stars hung up in the immense space of the universe ; 
innumerable suns, whose beams enlighten and cherish the 
unknown worlds which roll around them; and w^hilst I am 
ravished by such contemplations as these, whilst my soul is 
thus raised up to heaven, it imports me little what ground I 
tread upon. 

FORTUNE NOT TO BE TRUSTED. 

The sudden invasion of an enemy overthrows such as are 
not on their guard ; but they who foresee the w^ar, and prepare 
themselves for it before it breaks out, stand without difficulty 
the first and the fiercest onset. I learned this important lesson 
long ago, and never trusted to fortune, even while she seemed 
to be at peace with me. The riches, the honors, the reputa- 
tion, and all the advantages which her treacherous indulgence 
poured upon me, I placed so, that she might snatch them away 
without giving me any disturbance. I kept a great interval 
between me and them. She took them, but she could not tear 
them from me. No man suffers by bad fortune, but he who 
has been deceived by good. If we grow fond of her gifts, fancy 
that they belong to us, and are perpetually to remain with us ; 
if we lean upon them, and expect to be considered for them, 
29 



450 DODDRIDGE. [gEORGE II. 

we shall sink into all the bitterness of grief, as soon as these 
false and transitory benefits pass away, as soon as our vain and 
childish minds, unfraught with solid pleasures, become destitute 
even of those which are imaginary. But, if we do not suffer 
ourselves to be transported with prosperity, neither shall we be 
reduced by adversity. Our souls will be proof against the 
dangers of both these states: and having explored our strength, 
we shall be sure of it ; for in the midst of felicity, we shall have 
tried how we can bear misfortune. 



PHILIP DODDRIDGE, 1702—1751. 

Few men have exerted a more happy, holy and wide-spread influence 
upon the world than the " dissenting" minister, Philip Doddridge. He was 
born in London, in 1702, and at an early age he became the pupil of Mr. 
John Jennings, who kept an academy at Kibworth, in Leicestershire, and in 
1722 he entered upon the ministry at the same place. On the death of Mr. 
Jennings he succeeded to his place, but in 1729, being invited by the " dis- 
senting" congregation of that place to become their pastor, he removed there. 
Here for nearly twenty-two years he labored wiih great zeal and most ex- 
emplary piety, as pastor of the church, and as the principal of the academy, 
with the highest credit to himself, and benefit to those under his care But 
his health declining in consequence of his great labors, he took a voyage to 
Lisbon, in the hope of deriving benefit from the relaxation and change of 
air and climate. But all in vain; and he died at Lisbon thirteen days after 
his arrival, October 26, 1751. 

Of the writings of Dr. Doddridge, too much, we think, can hardly be said 
in praise. His ' ' Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul," forms a body of 
practical divinity and Christian experience that has never been surpassed by 
any work of the same nature. Like the works of Baxter, Bunyan and 
Watts, it is the classic of the religious world. His " Sermons on the Edu- 
cation of Children," " Sermons to Young People," " Ten Sermons on the 
Power and Grace of Christ," "A Course of Lectures on the Principal Sub- 
jects in Pneumatology, Ethics, and Divinity,"' are held in the highest esti- 
mation by all ranks of Christians. Another work, still popular, is " Some 
Remarkable Passages in the Life of Colonel James Gardiner, who was slain 
by the Rebels at the Battle of Preston Pans, September 21, 1745. "^ But 

^ *' And first, as an universal storehouse, necessary to him in the conduct 
of his theological pursuits, Doddridge's Lectures." — Bp. of Durham's Charge. 

2 This Colonel Gardiner was a brave Scottish officer, who had served with dis- 
tinction under Marlborough. From the life of a gay libertine he was suddenly 
converted to one of the strictest piety, by what he considered a supernatural 
interference, namely, a visible representation of Christ upon the Cross, sus- 
pended in the air, amidst an unusual blaze of light, and accompanied by a 
declaration of the words, " Oh^ sinner ! did I suffer this for thee, and are 



1727-1760.J DODDRIDGE. 451 

his most elaborate work, the result of many years' study, was " The Family 
Expositor, Containing a Version and Paraphrase of the New Testament, 
with Critical Notes, and a Practical Improvement of Each Section." This 
admirable compendium of Scriptural knowledge has, from its solid learning, 
critical acuteness, and the persuasive earnestness of its practical reflections, 
ever been held in the highest estimation by the Christian world,* and has 
been translated into several languages. To Doddridge, also, are we indebted 
for some of our best sacred lyrics, and for that epigram which Dr. Johnson 
calls " one of the finest in the English language. "^ His letters, also, are ad- 
mirable specimens of epistolary writing, and for their easy and natural style 
are not unUke those of Cowper. 



LETTER TO A FEMALE FRIEND. 

You know I love a country life, and here we have it in per- 
fection. I am roused in the morning with the chirping of spar- 
rows, the cooing of pigeons, the lowing of kine, the bleating of 
sheep, and, to complete the concert, the grunting of swine and 
neighing of horses. We have a mighty pleasant garden and 
orchard, and a fine arbor under some tall shady limes, that form 
a kind of lofty dome, of which, as a native of the great city, 
you may perhaps catch a g-limmering idea, if I name the cupola 
of St. Paul's. And then, on the other side of the house, there 
is a large space which we call a wilderness, and which, I fancy, 
would please you extremely. The ground is a dainty green 
sward ; a brook runs sparkling through the middle, and there 
are two large fish-ponds at one end; both the ponds and the 

these the returns ?" From the period of this vision till his death, twenty-six 
years aflerwards, Colonel Gardiner maintained the life of a sincere Christian, 
so far as the military profession is compatible therewith. But the time is to 
come when the Christian will say, what was said by those in the first and 
second centuries when called to enlist in the Roman armies, " I am a Chris- 
tian, and therefore cannot fight." God speed the day ! Contrast but for a 
moment the commands of the Saviour with the commands of a military officer, 
and then you can better decide what sliall be said of a professing Christian 
who does any thing by word or deed that may even seem to be an apology for 
war. "Love your enemies," "Make ready;" — "Bless them that curse 
you," " Take aim ;" — " And pray for them which despitefuily use you and 
persecute you," " Fire !" 

^ " In reading the New Testament," says the Bishop of Durham, " I re- 
commend Doddridge's Family Expositor, as an impartial interpreter and faith- 
ful monitor. I know of no expositor who unites so many advantages as 
Doddridge." 

^ Live while you live, the epicure would say, 

And seize the pleasures of the present day. 

Live while you live, the sacred preacAer cries, 

And give to God each moment as it flies. 

Lord, in my views let both united be, 

I live in pleasure when I live to thee. 



452 DODDRIDGE. [gEORGE II. 

brook are surrounded with willows; and there are several shady- 
walks under the trees, besides little knots of young willows 
interspersed at convenient distances. This is the nursery of 
our lambs and calves, with whom I have the honor to be inti- 
mately acquainted. Here I generally spend the evening, and 
pay my respects to the setlinjr sun, when the variety and the 
beauty of the prospect inspire a pleasure that I know not how 
to express. I am sometimes so transported with these inani- 
mate beauties, that I fancy I am like Adam in Paradise; and it 
is my only misfortune that I want an Eve, and have none but 
the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field, for my com- 
panions. 

LETTER TO HIS WIFE. 

I hope, my dear, you will not be offended when I tell you 
that I am, what I hardly thought it possible, without a miracle, 
that I should have been, very easy and happy without you. 
My days begin, pass, and end in pleasure, and seem short be- 
cause they are so delightful. It may seem strange to say it. 
but really so it is, I hardly feel that I want any thing. I often 
think of you, and pray for you, and bless God on your account, 
and please myself with the hope of many comfortable days, and 
weeks, and years witii you ; yet I am not at all anxious about 
your return, or, indeed, about any thing else. And the reason, 
the great and sufficient reason is, that I have more of the pre- 
sence of God with me than I remember ever to have enjoyed 
in any one month of my life. He enables me to live for him, 
and to live with him. When I awake in the morning, which 
is always before it is light, I address myself to him, and con- 
verse with him, speak to him while I am lighting my candle 
and putting on my clothes, and have often more delight before 
I come out of my chamber, though it be hardly a quarter of an 
hour after my awaking, than I have enjoyed for whole days, 
or, perhaps, Meeks of my life. He meets me in my study, in 
secret, in family devotions. It is pleasant to read, pleasant to 
compose, pleasant to converse M'ith my friends at home ; plea- 
sant to visit those abroad — the poor, the sick; pleasant to write 
letters of necessary business by which any good can be done; 
pleasant to go out and preach the gospel to poor souls, of which 
some are thirsting for it, and others dying without it; pleasant 
in the week day to think how near another Sabbath is: but, oh I 
much, much more pleasant, to think how near eternity is, and 
how short the journey through this wilderness, and that it is 
but a step from earth to heaven. 



1727-1760.] DODDRIDGE. 453 

I cannot forbear, in these circumstances, pausing a little, and 
considering whence this happy scene just at this time arises, 
and whither it tends. Whether God is about to bring upon 
me any peculiar trial, for which this is to prepare me ; whether 
he is shordy about to remove me from the earth, and so is giv- 
ing me more sensible prelibations of heaven, to prepare me for 
it ; or whether he intends to do some peculiar services by me 
just at this time, which many other circumstances lead me 
sometimes to hope; or whether it be that, in answer to your 
prayers, and in compassion to that distress which I must other- 
wise have felt in the absence and illness of her who has been 
so exceedingly dear to me, and was never more sensibly dear 
to me than now he is pleased to favor me with this teaching 
experience ; in consequence of which, I freely own I am less 
afraid than ever of any event that can possibly arise, consistent 
with his nearness to my heart, and the tokens of his paternal 
and covenant love. I will muse no further on the cause. It 
is enough, the effect is so blessed. 

THE TRUE rSE TO BE MADE OF GENIUS AND LEARNING. 

Hath God given you genius and learning ? It was not that 
you might amuse or deck yourself with it, and kindle a blaze 
which should only serve to attract and dazzle the eyes of men. 
It was intended to be the means of leading both yourself and 
them to the Father of lights. And it will be your duty, accord- 
ing to the peculiar turn of that genius and capacity, either to 
endeavor to improve and adorn human life, or, by a more direct 
application of it to Divine subjects, to plead the cause of reli- 
gion, to defend its truths, to enforce and recommend its practice, 
to deter men from courses which would be dishonorable to God 
and fatal to themselves, and to try the utmost efforis of all the 
solemnity and tenderness with which you can clothe your ad- 
dresses, to lead them into the paths of virtue and happiness. 

WORLDLY CARES. 

Young people are generally of an enterprising disposition: 
having experienced comparatively little of the fatigues of busi- 
ness, and of the disappointments and incumbrances of life, they 
easily swallow them up, and annihilate them in their imagina- 
tion, and fancy that their spirit, their application, and address, 
will be able to encounter and surmount every obstacle or hinder- 
ance. But the event proves it othervrise. Let me entreat you, 



454 DODDRIDGE. [gEORGE II. 

therefore, to be cautious liow you plunge yourself into a greater 
variety of business than you are capable of managing as you 
ought, that is, in consistency with the care of your souls, and 
the service of God, which certainly ought not on any pretence 
to be neglected. It is true, indeed, that a prudent regard to 
vour worldly interest will require such a caution; as it is ob- 
vious to every careful observer, that multitudes are undone by 
grasping at more than they can conveniently manage. Hence it 
has frequently been seen, that while they have seemed resolved 
to be rich, they have pierced themselves through with many 
sorrows, have ruined their own families, and drawn down many 
others into desolation with them. Whereas, could they have 
been contented with moderate employments, and moderate 
gains, they might have prospered in their business, and might, 
by sure degrees, under a Divine blessing, have advanced to great 
and honorable increase. But if there was no danger at all to 
be apprehended on this head ; if you were as certain of becom- 
ing rich, and great, as you are of perplexing and fatiguing your- 
self in the attempt,— consider, I beseech you, how precarious 
these enjoyments are. Consider how often a plentiful tabic 
becomes a snare, and that which would have been for a man's 
welfare becomes a trap. Forget not that short lesson, which 
is so comprehensive of the highest wisdom— One thing is 



NEEDFUL. 



THE SABBATH. 

Lord of the Sabbath, hear our vows, 
On this thy day, in this thy house; 
And own, as grateful sacrifice, 
The songs which from the desert rise. 

Thine earthly Sabbaths, Lord, we love; 
But there's a nobler rest above ; 
To that our labouring souls aspire 
With ardent pangs of strong desire. 

No more fatigue, no more distress ; 
Nor sin nor hell shall reach the place; 
No groans to mingle with the songs 
Which warble from immortal tongues. 

No rude alarms of raging foes; 
No cares to break the long repose ; 
No midnight shade, no clouded sun, 
But sacred, high, eternal noon. 

O long-expected day, begin; 

Dawn on tliese realms of wo and sin ; 



1727-1760.] DODDRIDGE. 455 

Fain would we leave this weary road, 
And sleep in death to rest with God. 



SELF-EXAMINATION. 

Return, my roving heart, return, 

And chase these shadowy forms no more 5 
Seek out some solitude to mourn, 

And thy forsaken God implore. 

Wisdom and pleasure dwell at home ; 

Retired and silent seek them there : 
True conquest is ourselves to o'ercome, 

True strength to break the tempter's snare. 

And thou, my God, whose piercing eye 
Distinct surveys each deep recess. 

In these abstracted hours draw nigh. 
And with thy presence fill the place. 

Through all the mazes of my heart, 
My search let heavenly wisdom guide, 

And still its radiant beams impart, 
Till all be searched and purified. 

Then, with the visits of thy love, 
Vouchsafe my inmost soul to cheer ,- 

Till every grace shall join to prove 

That God hath fixed his dwelling here. 

ENTERING INTO COVENANT. 

O happy day, that fixed my choice 
On thee, my Saviour and my God! 

Well may this glowing heart rejoice, 
And tell its raptures all abroad. 

O happy bond, that seals my vows 
To him, who merits all my love ! 

Let cheerful anthems fill the house. 
While to that sacred shrine I move. 

'Tis done ; the great transaction's done : 
I am my Lord's, and he is mine : 

He drew me, and I followed on. 
Charmed to confess the voice divine. 

Now rest my long divided heart, 
Fixed on this blissful centre, restj 

With ashes who would grudge to part, 
When called on angels' bread to feast? 

High Heaven, that heard the solemn vow, 
That vow renewed, shall daily hear : 

Till, in life's latest hour, I bow, 
And bless in death a bond so dear. 



456 BUTLER. [gEORGE II. 



JOSEPH BUTLER, 1692—1752. 

Joseph Butler, the celebrated author of the "Analogy," was born at 
Wantage, in Berkshire, in 1692. Being of a Presbyterian family, he was 
sent to the "dissenting" academy at Tewksbury, with the view of entering 
the ministry. It was here that he gave the first proofs of the pecuHar bent 
of his mind to abstruse speculations, in some acute and ingenious remarks 
on Dr. Samuel Clarke's " Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of 
God," in private letters addressed to the author. He also gave much atten- 
tion to the points of controversy between the members of the "established" 
church, and the "dissenters," the result of which was that he went over to 
the former. After some little opposition from his father, he was allowed 
to follow his inclination, and in 1714 removed to Oxford. Having "taken 
orders," he was, in 1718, appointed preacher at the Rolls' chapel, which 
station he occupied about eight years, when he published a volume of ser- 
mons delivered in that chapel, which gave him the highest reputation as a 
profound and original thinker. 

After various preferments in the church, in 1736 he published his great 
work, "The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitu- 
tion and Course of Nature." His object in it is to demonstrate the connec- 
tion between the present and future state, and to show that there could be 
but one author of both, and consequently but one general system of moral 
government by which they must be regulated. In the execution of this 
task, his success and triumph were complete. He has built up a solid 
granite rampart, of such height and strength, for the defence of revealed 
religion, that all the missiles of infidels, from that day to this, have been 
hurled against it in vain. In 1738 he was promoted to the bishopric of Bristol, 
and in 1750 to that of Durham, the highest preferment. He held this but a 
short time, as he died at Bath in June, 1752. 

The character of Butler was everything that would be expected from his 
writings. Of piety most fervent, and of morals most pure, he lived the 
life, while he possessed the faith of the Christian. " No man," says his 
biographer, "ever more thoroughly possessed the meekness of wisdom. 
Neither the consciousness of intellectual strength, nor the just reputation 
which he had thereby attained, nor the elevated station to which he had 
been raised, in the slightest degree injured the natural modesty of his cha- 
racter, or the mildness and sweetness of his temper." His liberality also 
was equal to his means. His income he considered as belonging to his 
station, and not to himself; and so thoroughly was this feeling of his under- 
stood, that his relatives never indulged the expectation of pecuniary benefit 
from his death. He well understood the true use of money, that it is worth- 
less and contemptible except as a means of doing good. It was his remark 
on his promotion to Durham : " It would be a melancholy thing at the close 
of hfe to have no reflections to entertain one's self with, but that one had spent 
the revenues of the bishopric of Durham in a sumptuous course of living, 
and enriched one's friends with the promotions of it, instead of having really 



1727-1760.] BUTLER. 457 

set one's self to do good, and to promote worthy men." How much such 
a character honors religion I How much lis opposite disgraces it ! 

The following just and eloquent remarks upon the design of Butler's 
Analogy are taken from the admirable analysis of that great work by Bishop 
Wilson, prefixed to his edition of it/ 

" Bishop Butler is one of those creative geniuses who give a character to 
their times. His great work, ' The Analogy of Rehgion,' has fixed the ad- 
miration of all competent judges for nearly a century, and will continue to 
be studied so long as the language in which he wrote endures. The mind 
of a master pervades it. The author chose a theme infinitely important, and 
he has treated it with a skill, a force, a novelty and talent, which have left 
little for others to do afrer him. He opened the mine and exhausted it him- 
self. A discretion which never oversteps the line of prudence, is in him 
united with a penetration which nothing can escape. There are in his writings 
a vastness of idea, a reach and generalization of reasoning, a native simph- 
city and grandeur of thought, which command and fill the mind. At the 
same time, his illustrations are so striking and familiar as to instruct as well 
as persuade. Nothing is violent, nothing far-fetched, nothing pushed beyond 
its fair hmiis, nothing fanciful or weak: a masculine power of argument runs 
through the whole. All bespeaks that repose of mind, that tranquillity 
which springs from a superior understanding, and an intimate acquaintance 
with every part of his subject. He grasps firmly his topic, and insensibly 
communicates to his reader the calmness and conviction which he possesses 
himself. He embraces with equal ease the greatest and the smallest points 
connected with his argument. He often throws out as he goes along, some 
general principle which seems to cost him no labor, and yet which opens a 
whole field of contemplation before the view of the reader. 

" Butler was a philosopher in the true sense of the term. He searches for 
wisdom wherever he can discern its traces. He puts forth the keenest saga- 
city in his pursuit of his great object, and never turns aside till he reaches 
and seizes it. Patient, silent, unobtrusive investigation was his forte. His 
powers of invention were as fruitful as his judgment was sound. Probably 
no book in the compass of theology is so full of the seeds of things, to use 
the expression of a kindred genius, 2 as the 'Analogy.' 

"He was a man raised up for the age in which he lived. The wits and 
infidels of the reign of our Second Charles, had deluged the land with the 
most unfair, and yet plausible wrhings against Christianity. A certain fear- 
lessness as to religion seemed to prevail. There was a general decay of 
piety and zeal. Many persons treated Christianity as if it were an agreed 
point amongst all people of discernment, that it had been found out to be 
fictitious. The method taken by these enemies of Christianity, was to 
magnify and urge objections more or less plausible, against particular doc- 
trines or precepts, which were represented as forming a part of it; and 
which, to a thoughtless mind, were easily made to appear extravagant, in- 

^ See also a most excellent introduction to Butler's Analogy by Kev. 
Albert Barnes. 2 Lord Bacon. 



458 BUTLER. [gEOROE II. 

credible, and irrational. They professed to admit the Being and Attributes 
of the Almighty; but they maintained that human reason was sufficient for 
the discovery and establishment of this fundamental truth, as well as for the 
development of those moral precepts, by which the conduct of life should be 
regulated ; and they boldly asserted, that so many objections and difficulties 
might be urged against Christianity, as to exclude it from being admitted as 
Divine, by any thoughtful and enlightened person. 

"These assertions Butler undertook to refute. He was a man formed for 
such a task. He knew thoroughly what he was about. He had a mind to 
weigh objections, and to trace, detect, and silence cavils. Accordingly, he 
came forward in all the self-possession, and dignity, and meekness of truth, 
to meet the infidel on his own ground. He takes the admission of the unbe- 
liever, that God is the Creator and Ruler of the natural world, as a principle 
conceded. From this point he sets forward, and pursues a course of argu- 
ment so cautious, so solid, so forcible ; and yet so diversified, so original, so 
convincing ; as to carry along with him, almost insensibly, those who have 
once put themselves under his guidance. His insight into the constitution 
and course of nature is almost intuitive ; and the appHcation of his know- 
ledge is so surprisingly skilful and forcible, as to silence or to satisfy every 
fair antagonist He traces out every objection with a deliberation which no- 
thing can disturb ; and shows the fallacies from whence they spring, with a 
precision and acuteness which overwhelm and charm the reader. 

" Accordingly, students of all descriptions have long united in the praise of 
Butler. He is amongst the few classic authors of the first rank in modern 
literature. He takes his place with Bacon, and Pascal, and Newton, those 
mighty geniuses who opened new sources of information on the most import- 
ant subjects, and commanded the love and gratitude of mankind. If his 
powers were not fully equal to those of these most extraordinary men, they 
were only second to them. He was in his own line, nearly what they were 
in the inventions of science, and the adaptation of mathematics to philosophy 
founded on experiment. He was of like powers of mind, of similar calm 
and penetrating sagacity, of the same patience and perseverance in pursuit, 
of kindred acuteness and precision in argument, of hke force and power in 
his conclusions. His objects were as great, his mind as simple, his percep- 
tion of truth as distinct, his comprehension of intellect nearly as vast, his 
aim as elevated, his success as surprising." 

CHRISTIANITY A SCHEME IMPERFECTLY COMPREHENDED. 

Christianity is a scheme quite beyond our comprehension. 
The moral government of God is exercised, by gradually con- 
ducting things so in the course of his providence, that every 
one, at length and upon the whole, shall receive according to 
his deserts ; and neither fraud nor violence, but truth and right, 
shall finally prevail. Christianity is a particular scheme under 
this general plan of providence, and a part of it, conducive to 
its completion, with regard to mankind : consisting itself also 



1727-1760.] BUTLER. 459 

of various parts, and a mysterious economy, which has been 
carrying on from the time the world came into its present 
wretched state, and is still carrying on, for its recovery, by a 
divine person, the Messiah ; " who is to gather together in one 
the children of God that are scattered abroad," and establish 
" an everlasting kingdom, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 
And in order to it, after various manifestations of things relating 
to this great and general scheme of providence, through a suc- 
cession of many ages ; after various dispensations, looking 
forward and preparatory to this final salvation, " In the fulness 
of time," when Infinite Wisdom thought fit, he, "being in the 
form of God, made himself of no reputation, and took upon 
him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of 
men ; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled him- 
self, and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross : 
wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a 
name which is above every name ; that at the name of Jesus 
every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in the 
earth, and things under the earth ; and that every tongue should 
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the 
Father." Parts likewise of this economy are, the miraculous 
mission of the Holy Ghost, and his ordinary assistances given 
to good men ; the invisible government which Christ at present 
exercises over his church ; that which he himself refers to in 
these words, " In my Father's house are many mansions — I go 
to prepare a place for you ;" and his future return to "judge 
the world in righteousness," and completely re-establish the 
kingdom of God. " For the Father judgeth no man, but hath 
committed all judgment unto the Son ; that all men should 
honor the Son, even as they honor the Father." " All power 
is given unto him in heaven and in earth." "And he must 
reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. Then cometh 
the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, 
even the Father ; when he shall have put down all rule, and 
all authority and power. And when all things shall be subdued 
unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him 
that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." 
Now little, surely, need be said to show, that this system, or 
scheme of things, is but imperfectly comprehended by us. The 
Scripture expressly asserts it to be so. And indeed one cannot 
read a passage relating to this " great mystery of godliness," 
but what immediately runs up into something which shows us 
our ignorance in it ; as everything in nature shows us our igno- 
rance in the constitution of nature. And whoever will seriously 



460 BUTLER. [gEORGE II. 

consider that part of the Christian scheme which is revealed in 
Scripture, will find so much more iinrevealed, as will convince 
him, that, to all the purposes of judging and objecting, we 
know as little of it as of the constitution of nature. Our igno- 
rance, therefore, is as much an answer to our objections against 
the perfection of one, as against the perfection of the other. 

It is obvious, too, that in the Christian dispensation, as much 
as in the natural scheme of things, means are made use of to 
accomplish ends. And the observation of this furnishes us 
with the same answer to objections against the perfection of 
Christianity, as to objections of the like kind against the con- 
stitution of nature. It shows the credibility, that the things 
objected against, how " foolish" soever they appear to men, 
may be the very best means of accomplishing the very best 
ends. And their appearing " foolishness" is no presumption 
against this, in a scheme so greatly beyond our comprehension. 

The credibility, that the Christian dispensation may have 
been, all along, carried on by general laws, no less than the 
course of nature, may require to be more distinctly made out. 
Consider, then, upon what ground it is we say, that the whole 
common course of nature is carried on according to general 
foreordained laws. We know, indeed, several of the general 
laws of matter ; and a great part of the natural behavior of living 
agents is reducible to general laws. But we know, in a man- 
ner, nothing, by what laws storms and tempests, earthquakes, 
famine, pestilence, become the instruments of destruction to 
mankind. And the laws, by which persons born into the 
world at such a time and place, are of such capacities, geniuses, 
tempers; the laws, by which thoughts come into our mind, in 
a multitude of cases ; and by which innumerable things happen, 
of the greatest influence upon the affairs and state of the world 
— these laws are so wholly unknown to us, that we call the 
events, which come to pass by them, accidental ; though all 
reasonable men know certainly, that there cannot, in reality, be 
any such thing as chance ; and conclude, that the things which 
have this appearance are the result of general laws, and may be 
reduced into them. It is then but an exceeding little way, and 
in but a very few respects, that we can trace up the natural 
course of things before us to general laws. And it is only from 
analogy that we conclude the whole of it to be capable of being 
reduced intot hem ; only from our seeing that part is so. It is 
from our finding that the course of nature, in some respects and 
so far, goes on by general laws, that we conclude this of the 
rest. And if that be a just ground for such a conclusion, it is 



1727-1760.] BUTLER. 461 

a just ground also, if not to conclude, yet to apprehend, to ren- 
der it supposable and credible, which is sufficient for answering 
objections, that God's miraculous interpositions may have been, 
all along, in like manner, by general laws of wisdom. Thus, 
that miraculous powers should be exerted at such times, upon 
such occasions, in such degrees and manners, and with regard 
to such persons, rather than others ; that the affairs of the 
world, being permitted to go on in their natural course so far^ 
should, just at such a point, have a new direction given them 
by miraculous interpositions ; that these interpositions should 
be exactly in such degrees and respects only ; all this may have 
been by general laws. These laws are unknown, indeed, to 
us ; but no more unknown, than the laws from whence it is 
that some die as soon as they are born, and others live to ex- 
treme old age ; that one man is so superior to another in un- 
derstanding ; with innumerable more things, which, as was 
before observed, we cannot reduce to any laws or rules at all, 
though it is taken for granted, they are as much reducible to 
general ones as gravitation. Now, if the revealed dispensations 
of Providence, and miraculous interpositions, be by general laws, 
as well as God's ordinary government in the course of nature, 
made known by reason and experience ; there is no more reason 
to expect, that every exigence, as it arises, should be provided 
for by these general laws or miraculous interpositions, than that 
every exigence in nature should, by the general laws of nature: 
yet there might be wise and good reasons, that miraculous in- 
terposition should be by general laws, and that these laws should 
not be broken in upon, or deviated from, by other miracles. 

Upon the whole, then, the appearance of deficiencies and 
irregularities in nature, is owing to its being a scheme but in 
part made known, and of such a certain particular kind in other 
respects. Now w^e see no more reason, why the frame and 
course of nature should be such a scheme, than why Christianity 
should. And that the former is such a scheme, renders it 
credible that the latter, upon supposition of its truth, may be so 
too. And as it is manifest that Christianity is a scheme re- 
vealed but in part, and a scheme in which means are made use 
of to accomplish ends, like to that of nature; so the credibility, 
that it may have all along been carried on by general laws, no 
less than the course of nature, has been distinctly proved. And 
from all this it is beforehand credible, that there might, I think 
probable that there would, be the like appearances of deficien- 
cies and irregularities in Christianity as in nature ; i. e., that 
Christianity would be liable to the like objections as the frame 



462 BERKELEY. [gEORGE II. 

of nature. And these objections are answered by these ob- 
servations concerning Christianity ; as the like objections 
against the frame of nature, are answered by the like observa- 
tions concerning the frame of nature. 



GEORGE BERKELEY, 1684—1753. 

GeoritE Berkeley, the celebrated Bishop of Cloyne, in Ireland, was the 
son of William Berkeley, of the County of Kilkenny, and was born on the 
12th of March, 1684, and received his education at Trinity College, Dublin, 
to which he was admitted as a fellow in 1707. In 1709 he published his 
"Theory of Vision," in which he shows that the connection between the 
sight and the touch is the effect of habit, and that a person born blind, and 
suddenly made to see, would at first be unable to tell how the objects of sight 
would aifect the sense of touch. The year following he published that work 
by which his name is most known, "The Principles of Human Know- 
ledge;" in which he attempts to disprove the existence of matter, and 
to demonstrate that all material objects are not external to, but exist in 
the mind, and are, in short, merely impressions made upon it by the imme- 
diate power and influence of the Deity. It should not, however, be supposed 
that he was so skeptical as to reject the testimony of his senses, or to deny 
the reality of his sensations. He disputed not the effects but the causes of 
our sensations, and was, therefore, induced to inquire, whether these causes 
took their birth from matter external to ourselves, or proceeded merely from 
impressions on the mind, through the immediate immaterial agency of the 
Deity. 

The talent, the elegance, and the metaphysical acuteness of Berkeley's 
productions, very strongly attracted the attention of the public, and on visit- 
ing London, in 1713, he very rapidly acquired, and very uniformly retained 
numerous and valuable friends. Among these, were Sir Richard Steele and 
Dr. Swift, the former of whom engaged him to write some papers for the 
"Guardian," just then commenced; while the latter introduced him to his 
relation. Lord Berkeley, who, when appointed ambassador to Italy, in No- 
vember of that year, selected Berkeley to accompany him as his chaplain 
and secretary. 

From this embassy he returned in a year, and after some time accepted 
an offer of making the tour of Europe with Mr. Ashe, son of the Bishop of 
Clogher. He spent four years on the continent, and on his return in 1721, 
finding in what general distress the nation was involved in consequence of the 
failure of the South Sea scheme,' he employed his talents in endeavoring to 

* This " Scheme," of such famous memory, was originated by John Blount 
or Blunt, in 1719, a scrivener by profession, and a man of consummate cun- 
ning. Engaging a number of persons to join him, he proposed to government 
to become the sole public creditor; that is, to become responsible for all the 



I 



1727-1760.] BERKELEY. 463 

alleviate the public misfortune, and published "An Essay towards prevent- 
ing the Ruin of Great Britain." The same year he went to Ireland as 
chaplain to the Duke of Grafton, then lord lieutenant, to whom, about two 
years after, he was indebted for a valuable promotion in the church, the 
deanery of Derry. He had long, however, had a very benevolent object in 
view, that of promoting education in the island of Bermuda; and now, de- 
termined to carry it into effect, he offered to resign his preferment, and to 
devote his life to this plan, on an income of ,£100 per year. He prevailed 
on three junior fellows of Trinity College, DubUn, to accompany him, and 
after great exertions he got a charter granted for the erection of a college, 
to be called " St. Paul's College," in Bermuda, and a promise of £20,000 
from the minister. Sir Robert Walpole. Every thing now promising suc- 
cess to his favorite object, in the fullness of his heart, and in the prospect of 
the good that was to be accomplished in the western world, he poured forth 
the following beautiful effusion, the last verse of which is " famiUar as house- 
hold words." 

The muse, disgusted at an age and clime 

Barren of every glorious theme, 
In distant lands now waits a better time 

Producing subjects worthy fame: 

In happy climes, where, from the genial sun 

And virgin earth, such scenes ensue; 
The force of art by nature seems outdone, 

And fancied beauties by the true : 

In happy climes, the seat of innocence, 

Where nature guides, and virtue rules; 
Where men shall not impose for truth and sense, 

The pedantry of courts and schools. 

debts due from the government to other trading corporations, on condition 
that he and his company should have the exclusive right of trading with all 
countries along the shores of the Pacific, or the " South Sea." The govern- 
ment accepted the proposition, a bill was carried through Parliament, and the 
South Sea Company was established. 

The subscriptions to the stock, however, came in but slowly, till Blunt had 
the hardihood to circulate a report that Gibraltar and Minorca were about to 
be exchanged by the ministry for Peru ; which arrangement would of course 
transfer an immense trade at once to the Pacific. Instantaneously the public 
mind was all inflamed with excitement. Persons of all ages, ranks, and con- 
ditions, hastened to purchase the stock ; to secure which thousands laid out 
their last farthing, and very many ran deeply into debt. The subscribers, 
however, had held their shares but a short time, when a sudden panic arose, 
and the bursting of the bubble was as complete and as rapid as had been its 
formation and expansion. Many eminent bankers and goldsmiths, who had 
advanced large sums of money on the security of the stock, became utterly 
bankrupt, and countless numbers of families were overwhelmed in ruin. All 
confidence, in short, both in individuals and government was at an end, and 
there was scarcely a mansion or cottage in England of which the inmates 
were not more or less sufferers from this grand scheme of deception and 
villainy. 



464 BERKELEY. [gEORGE II. 

There shall be sung another golden Eige, 

The rise of empire and of arts ; 
The good and great inspiring epic rage, 

The wisest heads and noblest hearts. 

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay, 

Such as she bred when fresh and young, 
When heavenly flame did animate her clay, 

By future poets shall be sung. 

Westward the course of empire takes its way : 

The four first acts already past, 
A fifth shall close the drama with the day : 

Time's noblest ofispring is the last. 

<• 

In September, 1728, he sailed from England for Rhode Island, as the 
most favorable point from which to sail for the Bermudas. He took up his 
residence at Newport, where for nearly two years he devoted himself inde- 
fatigably to his pastoral labors.* The government, however, disappointed 
him; the money promised was never paid; and he was compelled lo abandon 
his project and return home. In 1732 he published his " Alciphron," or 
" Minute Philosopher," a series of dialogues on the model of Plato, between 
two atheists and two Christians; and in 1734 he was promoted to the vacant 
bishopric of Cloyne, the duties of which he discharged with great zeal and 
faithfulness to the end of life, the most tempting offers of other more lucrative 
situations having no influence at all upon him. 

His sedentary life at Cloyne having brought disease upon him, and having 
received much relief in the use of tar water, he published, in 1744, his 
" Siris, a Chain of Philosophical Reflections and Inquiries concerning the 
Virtues of Tar- water," a work singularly curious for the multifarious erudi- 
tion that it embraces, and for the art with which the author has contrived to 
introduce into it the most profound philosophical and religious speculations. 
His last work was "Further Thoughts on Tar-water," published in 1752. 
Desirous to remove to Oxford to educate his son, he offered to resign his 
bishopric, worth jei400 a-year, so averse was he to the idea of non-residence. 
But the king would not listen to such a proposition, and said that Berkeley 
should " die a bishop in spite of himself," but that he might <choose his 
place of residence. Accordingly, after directing that £200 a year should be 
distributed to the poor of his diocese, he removed to Oxford in July, 1752. 
He enjoyed his retirement but for a short time, for on Sunday evening, Janu- 
ary 14, 1753, while Mrs. Berkeley was reading to him the 15th chapter of 
the First Corinthians, he expired. On this sublime chapter he w^as com- 
menting with his usual energy and ability, when he was in an instant de- 
prived of existence by a paralytic affection of the heart. 

It may be said of Berkeley, without exaggeration, that, in point of virtue 
and benevolence, no one of the sons of men has exceeded him. Whether 
we consider his public or his private life, we pause in admiration of efforts 
uncommonly exalted, disinterested, and pure. He was alike an object of 

* Some memorials of his liberalitv still exist in that ancient town. 



1727-1760.] BERKELEY. 465 

enthusiastic love and admiration to extensive societies, and to familiar 
friends; and in the relations of domestic life his manners were uniformly 
mild, sweet, and engaging, and in a pre-eminent degree calculated to ensure 
the most durable and affectionate attachment. Such, indeed, were the energy 
and impressive beauty of his character, that it was impossible to be many 
hours in his company without acknowledging its fascination and superiority. 
In short, after the most rigorous survey of the motives and actions of the 
Bishop of Cloyne, we are tempted to assign, in the language of Mr. Pope, 
and with no suspicion of hyperbolical praise, 

To Berkeley every virtue under heaven.i 



NATIONAL LUXURY THE DIRECT ROAD TO NATIONAL RUIN. 

Industry is the natural sure way to wealth ; this is so true, 
that it is impossible an industrious free people should want the 
necessaries and comforts of life, or an idle, enjoy them under 
any form of government. Money is so far useful to the public, 
as it promoteth industry, and credit having the same effect, is 
of the same value with money ; but money or credit circulating 
through a nation from hand to hand without producing labor 
and industry in the inhabitants, is direct gaming. 

It is not impossible for cunning men to make such plausible 
schemes, as may draw those who are less skilful into their own 
and the public ruin. But surely there is no man of sense and 
honesty, but must see and own, whether he understands the 
game or not, that it is an evident folly for any people, in- 
stead of prosecuting the old honest methods of industry and 
frugality, to sit down to a public gaming-table, and play off their 
money one to another. 

The more methods there are in a state for acquiring riches 
without industry or merit, the less there will be of either in that 
state ; this is as evident as the ruin that attends it. Besides, 
when money is shifted from hand to hand in such a blind for- 
tuitous manner, that some men shall from nothing in an instant 
acquire vast estates, without the least desert; while others are 
as suddenly stript of plentiful fortunes, and left on the parish 
by their own avarice and credulity, what can be hoped for, on 
the one hand, but abandoned luxury and wantonness, or on the 
other, but extreme madness and despair ? 

In short, all projects for growing rich by sudden and extra- 
ordinary methods, as they operate violently on the passions of 
men, and encourage them to despise the slow moderate gains 

^ Drake's Essays, vol. iii. p. 74. 

30 



466 BERKELEY. [gEORGE II. 

that are to be made by an honest industry, must be ruinous to 
the public, and even the winners themselves will at length be 
involved in the public ruin. 

Frugality of manners is the nourishment and strength of 
bodies politic. It is that by which they grow and subsist, until 
they are corrupted by luxury ; the natural cause of their decay 
and ruin. Of this we have examples in the Persians, Lacedae- 
monians, and Romans : not to mention many later governments 
which have sprung up, continued a w^hile, and then perished by 
the same natural causes. But these are, it seems, of no use to 
us ; and, in spite of them, we are in a fair way of becoming our- 
selves, another useless example to future ages. 

Simplicity of manners may be more easily preserved in a 
republic than a monarchy ; but if once lost, may be sooner re- 
covered in a monarchy, the example of a court being of great 
efficacy, either to reform or to corrupt a people ; that alone 
were sufficient to discountenance the wearing of gold or silver, 
either in clothes or equipage, and if the same were prohibited 
by law, the saving so much bullion would be the smallest benefit 
of such an institution; there being nothing more apt to debase 
the virtue and good sense of our gentry of both sexes, than the 
trifling vanity of apparel, which we have learned from France, 
and which hath had such visible ill consequences on the genius 
of that people. Wiser nations have made it their care to shut 
out this folly by severe laws and penalties, and its spreading 
among us can forebode no good, if there be any truth in the ob- 
servation of one of the ancients, that the direct way to ruin a 
man is to dress him up in fine clothes, i 

It cannot be denied that luxury of dress giveth a light beha- 
vior to our women, which may pass for a small ofTence, because 
it is a common one, but is in truth the source of great corrup- 
tions. For this very offence the prophet Isaiah denounced a 
severe judgment against the ladies of his time.^ The scab, the 
stench, and the burning are terrible pestilential symptoms, and 
our ladies would do well to consider, they may chance to re- 
semble those of Zion, in their punishment as well as their 
offence. 

But we are doomed to be undone. Neither the plain reason 
of the thing, nor the experience of past ages, nor the examples 
we have before our eyes, can restrain us from imitating, not to 
say surpassing, the most corrupt and ruined people, in those 

* These remarks are as just and applicable now as they were in 1721, when! 
they were first published. a Read Isaiah iii. 16—24. 



1727-1760.] COLLINS. 467 

very points of luxury that ruined them. Our gaming, our 
operas, our masquerades, are, in spite of our debts and poverty, 
become the wonder of our neighbors. If there be any man so 
void of all thought and common sense, as not to see where this 
must end, let him but compare what Venice was at the league 
of Cambray, with what it is at present, and he will be convinced 
how truly those fashionable pastimes are calculated to depress 
and ruin a nation. 

It is not to be believed, what influence public diversions have 
on the spirit and manners of a people. The Greeks wisely saw 
this, and made a very serious affair of their public sports. For the 
same reason, it will, perhaps, seem worthy the care of our legis- 
lature, to regulate the public diversions, by an absolute prohibi- 
tion of those which have a direct tendency to corrupt our morals, 
as well as by a reformation of the drama ; which, when rightly 
managed, is such a noble entertainment, and gave those fine 
lessons of morality and good sense to the Athenians of old, and 
to our British gentry above a century ago ; but for these last 
ninety years, hath entertained us, for the most part, with such 
wretched things as spoil, instead of improving the taste and 
manners of the audience. Those who are attentive to such 
propositions only as may fill their pockets, will probably slight 
these things as trifles below the care of the legislature. But I 
am sure, all honest thinking men must lament to see their 
country run headlong into all those luxurious follies, which, it 
is evident, have been fatal to other nations, and will undoubtedly 
prove fatal to us also, if a timely stop be not put to them. 



WILLIAM COLLINS, 1720-1756. 

William Collins, one of the very finest of English lyric poets, was born 
at Chichester, in the year 1720, and was educated at Oxford. In 1744 he 
repaired to London as a lirerary adventurer. He won the cordial regard of 
Johnson, then a needy laborer in the same vocation, who, in his " Lives of 
the Poets," has spoken of him with tenderness. He tells us that "his ap- 
pearance was decent and manly, his knowledge considerable, his views 
extensive, his conversation elegant, and his disposition cheerful. He de- 
signed many works, but his great fault was irresolution ; or the frequent 
calls of immediate necessity broke his scheme, and suffered him to pursue 
no settled purpose." 

His odes were pubhshed on his own account in 1746; but being disap- 
pointed at the slowness of the sale, he is said to have burnt the copies that 
remained with his own hand. He was shortly relieved from his embarrass- 



468 COLLINS. [george II. 

ments, by a legacy from an uncle of £2000 ; but worse evils than poverty 
soon overclouded the rest of his life : he sunk gradually into a sort of melan- 
choly, and died in 1756, in a state of helpless insanity.' 

"The works of Collins," says Campbell, "will abide comparison with 
whatever Milton wrote under the age of thirty. If they have rather less 
exuberant wealth of genius, they have more exquisite touches of pathos. 
Like Milton, he leads us into the haunted ground of imagination : like him, 
he has the rich economy of expression haloed with thought, which by single 
or few words often hints entire pictures to the imagination. A cloud of 
obscurity sometimes rests on his highest conceptions, arising from the fine- 
ness of his associations, and the daring sweep of his allusions ; but the 
shadow is transitory, and interferes very Httle with the light of his imagery 
or the warmth of his feelings. His genius loved to breathe rather in the 
preternatural and ideal element of poetry than in the atmosphere of imitation, 
which lies closest to real life. He carried sensibility and tenderness into 
the highest regions of abstracted thought : his enthusiasm spreads a glow 
even amongst 'the shadowy tribes of mind;' and his allegory is as sensible 
to the heart as it is visible to the fancy. "2 

ODE TO FEAR.3 

Thou, to whom the world unknown, 
With all its shadowy shapes, is shown j 
Who seest appall 'd th' unreal scene, 
While Fancy lifts the veil between: 

Ah, Fear ! ah, frantic Fear ! 

I see, I see thee near. 
I knov/ thy hurried step, thy haggard eye ! 
Like thee I start, like thee disorder "d fly. 
For, lo, what monsters in thy train appear ! 

* " In the year 1756 died our lamented Collins ; one of our most exquisite 
poets, and of whom, perhaps, without exaggeration, it may be asserted, that 
he partook of the credulity and enthusiasm of Tasso, the magic wildness of 
Shakspeare, the sublimity of Milton, and the pathos of Ossian." — Drake^s 
Literary Hours. 

^ "Of all our minor poets, that is, those who have attempted only short 
pieces, Collins is probably the one who has shown most of the highest quali- 
ties of poetry, and who excites the most intense interest in the bosom of the 
reader. He soars into the regions of imagination, and occupies the highest 
peaks of Parnassus. His fancy is glowing and vivid, but at the same time 
hasty and obscure. He has the true inspiration of the poet. He heats and 
melts objects in the fervor of his genius, as in a furnace." — Hazlitt. 

^ Collins, who had often determined to apply himself to dramatic poetry, 
seems here, with the same view, to have addressed one of the principal 
powers of the drama, and to implore that mighty influence she had given to 
the genius of Shakspeare. In the construction of this nervous ode he has 
shown equal power of judgment and imagination. Nothing can be more 
striking than the violent and abrupt abbreviation of the measure in the fiflh and 
sixth verses, when the poet seems to feel the strong influence of the power he 
invokes : 

"Ah, Fear— ah, frantic Fear! 
I see — I see thee near." 



1727-1760.] COLLINS. 469 

Danger, whose limbs of giant mould 
What mortal eye can fix'd behold? 
Who stalks his round, an hideous form, 
Howling amidst the midnight storm, 
Or throws him on the ridgy steep 
Of some loose hanging rock to sleep : 
And with him thousand phantoms join'd, 
Who prompt to deeds accurs'd the mind: 
And those, the fiends, who near allied. 
O'er nature's wounds and wrecks preside ; 
While Vengeance, in the lurid air, 
Lifts her red arm, expos'd and bare : 
On whom that ravening brood of fate, 
Who lap the blood of Sorrow, wait; 
Who, Fear, this ghastly train can see, 
And look not madly wild, Uke thee ? 



In earliest Greece, to thee, with partial choice, 
The grief-ful Muse addrest her infant tongue : 

The maids and matrons, on her awful voice, 
Silent and pale, in wild amazement hung. 

Yet he, the Bard* who first invok'd thy name, 

Disdain'd in Marathon its power to feel : 
For not alone he nurs'd the poet's flame, 

But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot's steel. 

But who is he,2 whom later garlands grace, 
Who left awhile o'er Hybla's^ dews to rove. 

With trembling eyes thy dreary steps to trace, 
Where thou and furies shar'd the baleful grove? 

Wrapt in thy cloudy veil, th' incestuous Queen* 
Sigh'd the sad call her son and husband heard. 

When once alone it broke the silent scene, 
And he, the wretch of Thebes, no more appeared. 

O Fear, I know thee by my throbbing heart. 

Thy withering power inspir'd each mournful hne, 

Though gentle Pity claim her mingled part, 
Yet all the thunders of the scene are thine. 

» The Greek Tragic poet, .T.schylus, who was in the battle of Marathon, 
between the Athenians and Persians, B. C. 480. 

" Sophocles, another Greek dramatic poet. 

^ Hybla was a monntain in Sicily, famous for its honey and bees. 

* Jocasta, the Queen of Thebes, who, after the death of her husband Laius, 
married her own son (Edipus (whom Collins here calls the "wretch"), with- 
out knowing who he was. On this story is founded that most sublime and 
pathetic tragedy, the " (Edipus Tyrannus" of Sophocles. 



I 



470 COLLINS. [GEORGE II. 



ANTISTROPHE. 

Tliou who such weary lengths hast past, 
Where wilt thou rest, mad nymph, at last? 
Say, wih thou shroud in haunted cell, 
Where gloomy Rape and Murder dwell ? 
Or in some hoUowd seat, 
'Gainst which the big waves beat, 
Hear drowning seamen's cries in tempests brought ? 
Dark power, witli shufldering meek submitted tlKWght, 
Be mine, to read the visions old, 
Which tiiy awakening baids have told. 

And, lest thou meet my blasted view, 
Hold each strange tele devoutly tnie ; 
Ne"er be I found, by thee o'er-aw'd, 
In that thrice-hallow"d eve' abroad, 
When ghosts, as cottage-maids Ijelieve, 
Their pebbled teds permitted leave, 
And goblins haunt from fire, or fen, 
Or mine, or flood, the M'alks of men! 

thou, whose spirit most possest 
The sacred seat of Shakspeare's breast! 
By all that from thy prophet broke, 
In thy divine emotions spoke ! 
Hither again thy fury deal, 
Teach me but once like him to feel : 
His cypress wreath my meed decree, 
And I, Fear, will dwell with thee ! 



ODE TO e\t:ning.2 

If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, 

May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, 

Like thy own solemn springs, 

Thy springs, and dying gales j 

nymph reserv'd, while now the bright-hair'd sun 
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, 

With brede ethereal wove, 

O'erhang his wavy bed : 

Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-ey'd bat. 
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing, 

'■ He here alludes to the old superstitions connected with All Hallow Even, 
or Hallow E'en — the last evening of October. 

2 Though blank verse had been so successfnlly employed in English heroic 
measure, by one of the greatest poets that ever lived, and made the vehicle 
of the noblest poem that ever was written, yet no one had introduced it into 
lyric poetry before Collins. That be is most happy and successful in the use 
of it, who can doubt after reading this exquisite " Ode to Evening," the im- 
agery and enthusiasm of which must render it delightful to every reader of 
taste ? 



1727-1760.] COLLINS. 471 

Or where the beetle winds 
His small but sullen horn, 

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, 
Against the pilgrim, borne in heedless hum : 

Now teach me, maid compos'd, 

To breathe some soften'd strain, 

Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, 
May not unseemly with its stillness suit, 

As, musing slow, I hail 

Thy genial lov'd return ! 

For when thy folding-star arising, shows 
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp 

The fragrant hours, and elves 

Who slept in buds the day, 

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge, 
And sheds the freshening dew, and lovelier still, 

The pensive pleasures sweet 

Prepare thy shadowy car 5 

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene. 
Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells, 

Whose walls more awful nod 

By thy religious gleams. 

Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain. 
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut, 

That from the mountain's side. 

Views wilds, and swelling floods, 

And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires, 
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all 

Thy dewy fingers draw 

The gradual dusky veil. 

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, 
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve ! 

While Summer loves to sport 

Beneath thy lingering light : 

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves. 
Or Winter, yelhng through the troublous air, 

Afiirights thy shrinking train, 

And rudely rends thy robes : 

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule. 

Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace, 

Thy gentlest influence own. 

And love thy favorite name ! 



472 COLLINS. [george II 



THE PASSIONS. AN ODE FOR MUSIC. 

When Music, heavenly maid, was young, 
While yet in early Greece she sung, 
The Passions oft, to hear her shell, 
Throng'd around her magic cell, 
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting, 
Possest beyond the Muse's painting j 
By turns they felt the glowing mind 
Disturb'd, delighted, rais'd, refin'd. 
Till once, "tis said, when all were fir'd, 
Fiird with fury, rapt, inspir'd, 
From the supporting myrtles round 
They snatch VI her instruments of sound, 
And as they oft had heard apart 
Sweet lessons of her forceful art, 
Each, for madness rul'd the hour, 
Would prove his own expressive power. 

First Fear his hand, its skill to try, 

Amid the chords bewilder'd laid, 
And back recoild, he knew not why, 

Ev'n at the sound himself had made. 

Next Anger rush'd, his eyes on fire, 

In lightnings own'd his secret stings, 
In one rude clash he struck the lyre. 

And swept with hurried hand the strings. 

With woful measures wan Despair — 

Low sullen sounds his grief beguil'd, 
A solemn, strange, and mingled air, 

'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild. 

But thou, Hope, with eyes so fair, 
What was thy delighted measure ? 

* If the music which was composed for this ode, had equal merit with the 
ode itself, it must have been the most excellent performance of the kind, in 
which poetry and music have, in modern times, united. Other pieces of the 
same nature have derived their greatest reputation from the perfection of the 
music that accompanied them, having in themselves little more merit than 
that of an ordinary ballad : but in this we have the whole soul and power of 
poetry: — expression that, even without the aid of music, strikes to the heart; 
and imagery of power enough to transport the attention without the forceful 
alliance of corresponding sounds. What then must have been the effects of 
these united ? 

The picture of Hope in this ode is beautiful almost beyond imitation. 
By the united powers of imagery and harmony, that delightful being is exhi- 
bited with all the charms and graces that pleasure and fancy have appropriated 
to her. The descriptions of Joy, Jealousy, and Revenge, are excellent, 
though not equally so : those of Melancholy and Cheerfulness are superior 
to every thing of the kind; and, upon the whole, there may be very litde 
hazard in asserting that this is the finest ode in the English language. Read 
Observations on Collins^ Poems in the oSth vol. of Johnson's Poets. 



1727-1760.] COLLINS. 473 

Still it whisper'd promis'd pleasure, 

Aud bade the lovely scenes at distance hail ! 

Still would her touch the strain prolong, 
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale. 

She caird on Echo still through all the song ; 
And where her sweetest theme she chose, 
A soft responsive voice was heard at every close, 

And Hope enchanted smil'd, and wav'd her golden hair. 

And longer had she sung — ^but, with a frown. 

Revenge impatient rose ; 
He threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunder down, 
And, with a withering look. 
The war-denouncing trumpet took, 
And blew a blast so loud and dread. 
Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe. 
And ever and anon he beat 
The doubling drum with furious heat ; 
And though sometimes, each dreary pause between. 
Dejected Pity at his side 
Her soul-subduing voice applied, 
Yet still he kept his 'wild unalter'd mien^ 
While each strain'd ball of sight seem'd bursting from his he^d. 

Thy numbers, Jealousy, to naught were fix'd, 

Sad proof of thy distressful state, 
Of differing themes the veering song was mix'd, 

And now it courted Love, now raving call'd on Hate. 

With eyes up-rais'd, as one insph'd, 

Pale Melancholy sat retir'd, 

And frona her wild sequester'd seat, 

In notes by distance made more sweet, 

Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul: 

And dashing soft from rocks around, 

Bubblmg runnels join'd the sound ; 
Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole, 

Or o'er some haunted streams with fond delay. 
Round an holy calm diffusing. 
Love of peace, and lonely musing. 

In hollow murmurs died away. 

But, 0, how alter'd was its sprightlier tone ! 
When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue, 

Her bow across her shoulder flung. 

Her buskins gemm'd with morning dew, 
Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung, 
The hunter's call to Faun and Dryad known: 

The oak-crown'd sisters, and their chaste-ey'd queen, 

Satyrs and sylvan boys were seen, 

Peeping from forth their alleys green j 
Brown Exercise rejoic'd to hear. 
And Sport leapt up, and seiz'd his beechen spear. 



474 COLLINS. [george II. 

Last came Joy's ecstatic trial ; 

He, with viny crown advancing, 

First to the lively pipe his hand addrest, 

But soon he saw the brisk-awakening viol, 

Whose sweet entrancing voice he lov'd the best. 
They would have thought, who heard the strain, 
They saw in Tempes vale her native maids, 
Amidst the festal sounding shades, 

To some unwearied minstrel dancing, 

While, as his flying fingers kiss'd the strings. 
Love fram'd with IMirth a gay fantastic round. 
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound, 

And he, amidst his frolic play. 

As if he would the cliarming air repay, 

Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings. 

Music, sphere-descended maid, 
Friend of pleasure, wisdom's aid, 
Why, Groddess, why to us denied, 
Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside ? 
As in that lov'd Athenian bower. 
You learn'd in all-commanding power. 
Thy mimic soul, nymph endear'd, 
Can well recall what then it heard. 
Where is thy native simple heart. 
Devote to virtue, fancy, art ? 
Arise, as in that elder time. 
Warm, energic, chaste, sublime ! 
Thy wonders, in that god-like age, 
, Fill thy recording sister's page — 
'Tis said, and I believe the tale, 
Thy humblest reed could more prevail, 
Had more of strength, diviner rage. 
Than all which charms this laggard age, 
Ev'n all at once together found 
Caeciha's mingled world of sound — 
0, bid our vain endeavors cease, 
Revive the just designs of Greece, 
Return in all thy simple state ! 
Confirm the tales her sons relate ! 



ODE, WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1746. 

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, 
By all their country's wishes blest! 
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, 
Returns to deck their hallow'd mould, 
She there shall dress a sweeter sod, 
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. 

By Fairy hands their knell is rung, 
By forms unseen their dirge is sung ; 



1727-1760,j COLLINS. 475 

There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, 
To bless the turf that wraps their clay. 
And Freedom shall awhile repair, 
To dwell a weeping hermit there ! 



ODE TO MERCY.i 



Thou, who sitt'st a smiling bride 
By Valor's arm'd and awful side. 

Gentlest of sky-bom forms, and best ador'd : 

Who oft with songs, divine to hear, 

Win'st from his fatal grasp the spear, 
And liid'st in wreaths of flowers his bloodless sword! 

Thou who, amidst the deathful field, 

By godlike chiefs alone beheld, 
Oft with thy bosom bare art found. 
Pleading for him the youth who sinks to ground : 

See Mercy, see, with pure and loaded hands, 

Before thy shrine my country's genius stands, 
And decks thy altar still, though pierc'd with many a wound ! 

ANTISTROPHE. 

When he whom ev'n our joys provoke, 

The fiend of Nature join'd his yoke. 
And rush'd in wrath to make our isle his prey ; 

Thy form, from out thy sweet abode, 

O'ertook him on his blasted road. 
And stopp'd his wheels, and look'd his rage away. 

1 see recoil his sable steeds. 

That bore him swift to savage deeds, 
Thy tender melting eyes they own ; 
Maid, for all thy love to Britain shown, 

Where Justice bars her iron tower. 

To thee we build a roseate bower. 
Thou, thou shalt rule our queen, and share our monarch's throne! 



I. 

In yonder grave a Druid lies 

Where slowly winds the stealing wave ! 

'■ The Ode written in 1746, and the Ode to Mercy, seem to have been writ- 
ten on the same occasion, namely, the Scotch Rebellion of 1746, when the 
young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart, after landing in Scotland and rout- 
ing the English forces, was utterly defeated at CuUoden. The subsequent 
devastations of the Highlands by the English were dreadful and bloody in the 
highest degree ; and well might our gifted poet invoke the genius of Mercy. 

2 This ode on the Death of Thomson, seems to have been written in an 
excursion to Richmond on the Thames. Collins had " skill to complain." Of 



476 COLLINS. [GEORGE !I. 

The year's best sweets shall duteous rise, 
To deck its Poet's sylvan grave ! 



In yon deep bed of whispering reeds 
His airy harp* shall now be laid, 

That he, whose heart in sorrow bleeds, 
May love through life the soothing shade. 



Then maids and youths shall linger here, 
And, while its sounds at distance swell, 

Shall sadly seem in Pity's ear 

To hear the woodland pilgrim's knell. 

IV. 

Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore 

When Thames in siunmer wreaths is drest, 

And oft suspend the dashing 0£ir 
To bid his gentle spirit rest! 

T. 

And oft as Ease and Health retire 

To breezy lawn, or forest deep. 
The friend shall view yon whitening spire,* 

And "mid the varied landscape weep. 

TI. 

But thou, who own'st tliat earthly bed, 
Ah! what will every dirge avail? 

Or tears, which Love and Pity shed 
That mourn beneath the gliding sail ! 

VII. 

Yet lives there one, whose heedless eye 

Shall scorn thy pale shrine glimmering near? 

With him, sweet bard, may Fancy die. 
And Joy desert the blooming year. 

nil. 

But tliou, lorn stream, whose sullen tide 
No sedge-crown'd sisters now attend. 

Now waft me from the green hill's side 
Whose cold turf hides the buried friend I 



And see, the fairy A^alleys fade, 

Dim Night has veil'd the solemn view ! 

that mournful melodyj and those tender images, which are the distinguishing 
excellencies of such pieces as bewail departed friendship or beauty, he was 
almost an unequalled master. 

» The harp of ^olus, of which see a description in Thomson's Castle of 
Indolence. 

2 Thomson was buried in Richmond church. 



1760-1820.] RICHARDSON. 477 

Yet once again, dear parted shade, 
Meek nature's child, again adieu! 



The genial meads^ assign'd to bless 
Thy life, shall mourn thy early doom ! 

Their hinds and shepherd girls shall dress 
With simple hands thy rural tomb. 

XI. 

Long, long, thy stone, and pointed clay 
Shall melt the musing Briton's eyes. 

0! vales, and wild woods, shall he say, 
In yonder grave your Druid lies ! 



SAMUEL RICHARDSON, 1689—1761. 

Samuel Richardson, who may be said to be the inventor of the modern 
English novel, was the son of a carpenter in Derbyshire, and was born in 
1689. From the limited means of his father, he was restricted to a common 
school education, which is very apparent in the structure of his composition. 
He early exhibited, however, the most decisive marks of genius, and was 
remarkably partial to letter- writing, and to the company of his young female 
friends, with whom he maintained a constant correspondence, and even 
ventured, though only in his eleventh year, to become their occasional 
monitor and adviser. " As a bashful and not forward boy," he relates, " I 
was an early favorite with all the young women of taste and reading in the 
neighborhood. Half a dozen of them, when met to work with their needles, 
used, when they got a book they liked, and thought I should, to borrow me 
to read to them ; their mothers sometimes with them ; and both mothers and 
daughters used to be pleased with the observations they put me upon mak- 
ing." In this exercise, doubtless, we may see the germ of the future 
novelist. 

At the age of sixteen he was put to the printer's trade, which he chose 
because it would give him an opportunity for reading. At the termination 
of his apprenticeship he became a compositor and corrector of the press, and 
continued in this office for nearly six years, when he entered into business 
for himself. By his industry, punctuality, and integrity, he became more and 
more known, and his business rapidly increased ; so that in a few years he 
obtained the lucrative situation of printer to the House of Commons. He 
did not, however, neglect to use his pen, and frequently composed prefaces 
and dedications for the booksellers. He also published a volume of " Fami- 
liar Letters,'' which might serve as models for persons of Hmited education. 

^ Thomson resided in the neighborhood of Richmond some time before his 
death. 



478 RICHARDSON. [gEORGE III. 

In 1740 he published his first novel, "Pamela," which immediately at- 
tracted an extraordinary degree of attention. " It requires a reader," says 
Sir Walter Scott, "to be in some degree acquainted with the huge folios of 
inanity, over which our ancestors yawned themselves to sleep, ere be can 
estimate the delight they must have experienced from this unexpected return 
to truth and nature." Truly original in its plan, it united the interest arising 
from well- combined incident with the moral purposes of a sermon. Pope 
praised it as likely to do more good than twenty volumes of sermons ; and 
Dr. Sherlock recommended it from the pulpit. 

In 1749 appeared Richardson's second and greatest work, " The History 
of Clarissa Harlowe," which raised his reputation at once, as a master of 
fictitious narrative, to the highest point. Dr. Drake calls it "perhaps the 
most pathetic tale ever published." The admiration it excited was not con- 
fined to his own country. It was honored with two versions in French, and 
Rousseau declared that nothing ever equal, or approaching to it, had been 
produced in any country. 

As in the character of Clarissa, Richardson had presented a picture of 
female virtue and honor nearly perfect, so in 1753, in the " History of Sir 
Charles Grandison," he designed to give a character which should combine 
the elegance of the gentleman with the faith and virtues of the Christian. 
" This, though not indeed so pathetic as his former work, discovers more 
knowledge of life and manners, and is perfectly free from that indeUcacy and 
high coloring which occasionally render the scenery of Clarissa dangerous to 
young minds."^ 

In 1754 he was elected to the post of master to the Stationers' Company, 
a situation as lucrative as it was honorable. For some years previous to his 
death he had suffered much from nervous attacks, which at length terminated 
in an apoplectic stroke, which proved fatal on the 4th of July, 1761. 

No character could be freer from vice of every sort, or more perfectly irre- 
proachable, than Richardson. In all the duties of moraUty and piety he was 
the most regular and exemplary of men. As a writer, he possessed original 
genius, and an unlimited command over the tender passions; yet, owing to 
the prohxity of his productions and the poverty of his style, his works ^ are 
continually decreasing in popularity. How few now read " Clarissa," or 
" Sir Charles Grandison !" How important, then, is style to the preservation 
of hterary labor ! 

In 1755 was published a curious volume with the following title :— " A 
Collection of the Moral and Instructive Sentiments, Maxims, Cautions, and 
Reflections, contained in the Histories of Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles 
Grandison." From it we make the following extracts. 

MORAL SENTIMENTS. 

Beneficence. The power of doing good to worthy objects, 
is the only enviable circumstance in the lives of people of 
fortune. 



Drake's Essays, vol. v. p. 53. 



1760-1820.] RICHARDSON. 479 

What joy it is in the power of the wealthy to give themselves, 
whenever they please, by comforting those who struggle with 
undeserved distress. 

Nothing in human nature is so God-like, as the disposition 
to do good to our fellow creatures. 

Such is the blessing of a benevolent heart, that, let the world 
frown as it will, it cannot possibly bereave it of all happiness; 
since it can rejoice in the prosperity of others. 

Calumny, Censure. No one is exempt from calumny. 
Words said, the occasion of saying them not known, however 
justly reported, may bear a very different construction from 
what they would have done, had the occasion been told. 

Were evil actions to pass uncensured, good ones would lose 
their reward ; and vice, by being put on a foot with virtue in 
this life, would meet with general countenance. 

A good person will rather choose to be censured for doing 
his duty, than for a defect in it. 

Children. There is such a natural connection and pro- 
gression between the infantile and more adult state of children's 
minds, that those who would know how to account for their 
inclinations, should not be wholly inattentive to them in the 
former state. 

At two or three years old, or before the buds of children's 
minds will begin to open, a watchful parent will then be em- 
ployed, like a skilful gardener, in defending the flower from 
blights, and assisting it through its several stages to perfection. 

Education. Tutors should treat their pupils, with regard 
to such of their faulty habits as cannot easily be eradicated, as 
prudent physicians do their patients in chronical cases ; rather 
with gentle palliatives than harsh extirpatives ; which, by means 
of the resistance given to them by the habit, may create such 
ferments as may utterly defeat their intention. 

Neither a learned nor a fine education is of any other value 
than as it tends to improve the morals of men, and to make 
them wise and good. 

A generous mind will choose to win youth to its duty, by 
mildness and good usage, rather than by severity. 

The Almighty, by rewards and punishments, makes it our 
interest, as well as our duty, to obey Him ; and can we pro- 
pose to ourselves, for the government of our children, a better 
example? 

Friendship. The more durable ties of friendship are those 



480 RICHARDSON. [gEORGE III. 

which result from an union of minds formed upon religious 
principles. 

An open and generous heart will not permit a cloud to hang 
long upon the brow of a friend, without inquiring into the rea- 
son of it, in hopes to be able to dispel it. 

Freely to give reproof, and thankfully to receive it, is an 
indispensable condition of true friendship. 

One day, profligate men will be convinced, that what they 
call friendship is chaff and stubble, and that nothing is worthy 
of that sacred name that has not virtue for its base. 

General Observations. The man or woman who will 
obstinately vindicate a faulty step in another, seems to indicate, 
that, in like circumstances, he or she would have been guilty 
of the same fault. 

All our pursuits, from childhood to manhood, are only 
trifles of different sorts and sizes, proportioned to our years 
and views. 

We must not expect that our roses will grow without thorns; 
but then they are useful and instructive thorns, which, by 
pricking the fingers of the too hasty plucker, teach future 
caution. 

The Good Man. A good man lives to his own heart. He 
thinks it not good manners to slight the world's opinion ; though 
he will regard it only in the second place. 

A good man will look upon every accession of power to do 
good, as a new trial to the integrity of his heart. 

A good man, though he will value his own countrymen, yet 
will think as highly of the worthy men of every nation under 
the sun. 

A good man is a prince of the Almighty's creation. 

A good man will not engage even in a national cause, with- 
out examining the justice of it. 

How much more glorious a character is that of the friend of 
mankind, than that of the conqueror of nations ? 

The heart of a worthy man is ever on his lips : he will be 
pained when he cannot speak all that is in it. 

An impartial spirit will admire goodness or greatness where- 
ever he meets it, and whether it makes for or against him. 

The Good Woman. A good woman is one of the greatest 
glories of the creation. 

How do the duties of a good wife, a good mother, and a 
worthy matron, well performed, dignify a woman ! 



1760-1820.] SHERLOCK. 481 

A good woman reflects honor on all those who had any hand 
in her education, and on the company she has kept. 

A woman of virtue and of good understanding, skilled in, and 
delighting to perform the duties of domestic life, needs not for- 
tune to recommend her to the choice of the greatest and richest 
man, who wishes his own happiness. 

Youth. It is a great virtue in good-natured youtli to be 
able to say NO. 

Those who respect age, deserve to live to be old, and to be 
respected themselves. 

Young people set out with false notions of happiness ; with 
gay, fairy-land imaginations. 

It is a most improving exercise, as v/ell with regard to style 
as to morals, to accustom ourselves early to write down every 
thing of moment that befalls us. 

There is a docile season, a learning-time in youth, which, 
suffered to elapse, and no foundation laid, seldom returns. 

Young folks are sometimes very cunning in finding out con- 
trivances to cheat themselves. 



THOMAS SHERLOCK, 1678—1761. 

This learned prelate of the Church of England was born in London, 1678. 
He was educated at Catharine Hall, Cambridge, of which he became master, 
and in 1714 was vice-chancellor of the university. In the controversies 
which arose at that period respecting the proofs of the divine origin of Chris- 
tianity, Sherlock distinguished himself, particularly in his " Use and Intent 
of Prophecy," and his "Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of 
Jesus." In 1728 he was made Bishop of Bangor, in 1734 was translated to 
Salisbury, and in 1748 to London. In 1755 and 1756 he revised and cor- 
rected a large body of his sermons, which were published in four volumes. 
He died in 1761, at the advanced age of eighty- three. 

Sherlock's sermons are among the best specimens of English pulpit elo- 
quence extant. His style, though possessing but little ornament, is clear 
and vigorous, and a few passages may be selected from his writings, suck 
as the comparison between Christ and Mahomet, that are truly sublime. 

DIFFERENT ENDS OF RELIGION AND INFIDELITY. 

Should the punishments of another life be, what we have 
but too much reason to fear they will be, what words can then 
express the folly of sin ? Short are our days in this world, 
31 



482 SHERLOCK. [gEORGE III. 

and soon they shall expire : and should religion at last prove a 
mere deceit, we know the worst of it; it is an error for which 
we cannot suffer after death: nor will the infidels there have 
the pleasure to reproach us with our mistake ; they and we, in 
equal rest, shall sleep the sleep of death. But should our 
hopes, and their fears, prove true ; should they be so unhappy, 
as not to die for ever; which miserable hope is the only comfort 
that infidelity affords ; what pains and torments must they then 
undergo ? Could I represent to you the different states of good 
and bad men ; could I give you the prospect which the blessed 
martyr Stephen had, and show you the blessed Jesus at the 
right hand of God surrounded with angels, and the spirits of just 
men made perfect; could I open your ears to hear the never- 
ceasing hymns of praise, which the blessed above sing to him 
that 2vas, and is, and is to come; to the Lamb that was slain^ 
but liveth for ever; could I lead you through the unbounded 
regions of eternal day, and show you the mutual and ever- 
blooming joys of saints who are at rest from their labor, and 
live for ever in the presence of God ; or, could I change the 
scene, and unbar the iron gates of hell, and carry you, through 
solid darkness, to the fire that never goes out, 2ind to the ivonn 
that never dies: could I show you the apostate angels fast bound 
in eternal chains, or the souls of wicked men overwhelmed with 
torment and despair: could I open your ears to hear the deep 
itself groan with the continual cries of misery ; cries which can 
never reach the throne of mercy, but return in sad echoes, and 
add even to the very horrors of hell ; could I thus set before 
you the diflerent ends of religion and infidelity, you would want 
no other proof to convince you, that nothing can recompense the 
hazard men run of being for ever miserable through unbelief. 
But, though neither the tongues of men nor of anirels can ex- 
press the joys of heaven, or describe the pains of hell ; yet, if 
there be any truth in religion, these things are certain and neav 
at hand. 



THE INFORMATION THE GOSPEL GIVES, MOST DESIRABLE. 

The Christian revelation has such pretences, at least, as mav 
make it worthy of a particular consideration. It pretends to come 
from heaven ; to have been delivered by the Son of God ; to have 
been confirmed by undeniable miracles and prophecies ; to have 
been ratified by the blood of Christ and his apostles, who died 
in asserting its truth: it can show, likewise, an innumerable 
company of martyrs and confessors ; its doctrines are pure and 



1760-1820.] SHERLOCK. 483 

holy; its precepts just and righteous; its worship is a reason- 
able service, refined from the errors of idolatry and superstition, 
and spiritual, like the God who is the object of it ; it offers the 
aid and the assistance of heaven to the weakness of nature, 
which makes the religion of the Gospel to be as practicable as 
it is reasonable; it promises infinite rewards to obedience, and 
threatens eternal punishment to obstinate offenders, which 
makes it of the utmost consequence to us soberly to consider it, 
since every one who rejects it stakes his own soul against the 
truth of it. Look into the Gospel ; there you will find every 
reasonable hope of nature, nay, every reasonable suspicion of 
nature cleared up and confirmed, every difficulty answered and 
removed. Do the present circumstances of the world lead you 
to suspect that God could never be the author of such corrupt 
and wretched creatures as men now are ? Your suspicions are 
just and well founded. " God made man upright ;" but through 
the temptation of the devil, sin entered, and death and destruc- 
tion followed after. 

Do you suspect from the success of virtue and vice in this 
world, that the providence of God does not interpose to protect 
the righteous from violence, or to punish the wicked? The 
suspicion is not without ground. God leaves his best servants 
here to be tried oftentimes with affliction and sorrow, and per- 
mits the wicked to flourish and abound. The call of the Gospel 
is not to honor and riches here, but to take up our cross and 
follow Christ. 

Do you judge from comparing the present state of the world 
with the natural notion you have of God, and of his justice and 
goodness, that there must needs be another state in which jus- 
tice shall take place? You reason right, and the Gospel con- 
firms the judgment. God has appointed a day to judge the 
world in righteousness: then those who mourn shall rejoice, 
those who weep shall laugh, and the persecuted and afflicted 
servants of God shall be heirs of his kingdom. 

Have you sometimes misgivings of mind? Are you tempted 
to mistrust this judgment when you see the difficulties which 
surround it on every side ; some which affect the soul in its 
separate state, some which aflect the body in its state of corrup- 
tion and dissolution ? Look to the Gospel : there these diffi- 
culties are accounted for; and you need no longer puzzle 
yourself with dark questions concerning the state, condition, 
and nature of separate spirits, or concerning the body, however 
to appearance lost or destroyed; for the body and soul shall 
once more meet to part no more, but to be happy for ever. Li 



484 SHERLOCK. [gEORGE III. 

this case the learned cannot doubt, and the ignorant may be 
sure that 'tis the man, tlie very man himself, who shall rise 
again ; for an union of the same soul and body is as certainly the 
restoration of the man, as the dividing them was the destruction. 
Would you know who it is that gives this assurance ? It is 
one who is able to make good his word : one who loved you so 
well as to die for you ; yet one too great to be held a prisoner 
in the grave. No ; He rose with triumph and glory, the first 
born from the dead, and will, in like manner, call from the 
dust of the earth, all those who put their trust and contidence 
in Him. 

CHRIST AND MAHOMET CONTRASTED. 

Go to your Natural Religion : lay before her Mahomet and 
his disciples arrayed in armor and in blood, riding in triumph 
over the spoils of thousands and tens of thousands who fell by 
his victorious sword : show her the cities which he set in flames, 
the countries M'hich he ravaged and destroyed, and the miserable 
distress of all the inhabitants of the earth. When she has 
viewed him in this scene, carry her into his retirements: show 
her the prophet's chamber, his concubines and wives; let her 
see his adultery, and hear him allege revelation and his divine 
commission to justify his lust and his oppression. When she 
is tired of this prospect, then show her the blessed Jesus, hum- 
ble and meek, doing good to all the sons of men, patiently 
instructing both the ignorant and the perverse: let her see him 
in his most retired privacies: let her follow him to the mount, 
and hear his devotions and supplications to God : carry her to 
his table to view his poor fare, and hear his heavenly discourse: 
let her see him injured, but not provoked: let her attend him to 
the tribunal, and consider the patience with which he endured 
the scoffs and reproaches of his enemies: lead her to the cross, 
and let her view him in the agony of death, and hear his last 
prayer for his persecutors : " Father, forgive them, for they 
know not what they do !" When Natural Religion has viewed 
both, ask, Which is the prophet of God? But her answer we 
have already had, when she saw part of this scene through the 
eyes of the centurion who attended at the cross : by him she 
said, " Truly this w-as the Son of God." 



1760-1820.] BYROM. 485 



JOHN BYROM, 1691—1763. 

John Byhom, the son of a linen-draper at Manchester, was born in 1691, 
and at the age of seventeen entered the University of Cambridge. Here he 
cultivated with great assiduity a taste for elegant letters, and especially for 
poetry, to which, even in his earliest years, he had shown a marked pro- 
pensity. After taking his degree, he obtained a fellowship in the university 
through the influence of Dr. Richard Bentley, whose daughter Joanna is the 
" Phoebe" of his pastoral poem, the best of his poetical efforts. As he de- 
clined going into the church, he vacated his fellowship, and soon after mar- 
ried. Having no profession he went to London, and supported himself by 
teaching short-hand writing, till, by the death of his elder brother, he 
inherited the family estate, and spent the remainder of his life in easy cir- 
cumstances, devoting his time to literary pursuits. He died on the 28th of 
September, 1763, in the seventy-second year of his age. 

Byrom's best piece is his pastoral poem of " Colin and Phoebe," remark- 
able for its easy and flowing versification, and its sprightliness of thought. 
He also wrote a poem on " Enthusiasm," and one on the "Immortality of 
the Soul." His comic poem entitled the "Three Black Crows," has a 
most excellent moral in it, well illustrating the nature of Rumor, the Fama 
of Virgil. The Spectator is indebted to him for four or five numbers, of 
which Nos. 586 and 593 are upon the nature and use of dreams. 



A PASTORAL. 



My time, ye Muses, was happily spent, 
When Phoebe went with me wherever I went; 
Ten thousand sweet pleasures I felt in xnj breast: 
Sure never fond shepherd like Colin was blest; 
But now she is gone, and has left me behind ; 
"What a marvellous change on a sudden I find ! 
When things were as fine as could possibly be, 
I thought 'twas the spring; but, alas ! it was she. 

II. 

With such a companion, to tend a few sheep, 
To rise up and play, or to lie down and sleep, 
I was so good-humor 'd, so cheerful and gay, 
My heart was as light as a feather all day. 
But now I so cross and so peevish am grown, 
So strangely uneasy as never was known. 
My fair-one is gone, and my joys are all drown'd, 
And my heart — I am sure it weighs more than a pound. 

HI. 

The fountain that wont to run sweetly along, 
And dance to soft murmurs the pebbles among ; 



486 BYROM. [gEORGE III. 

Thou know'st, little Cupid, if Phoebe was there, 

'Twas pleasure to look at, 'twas music to hear : 

But now she is absent I walk by its side, 

And still as it murmurs do nothing but chide. 

Must you be so cheerful while I go in pain ? 

Peace there with your bubbling, and hear me complain. 

IV. 

When my lambkins around me would oftentimes play, 
And when Pha'be and 1 were as joyful as tliey. 
How pleasant tlieir sporting, how ha^jjjy the time. 
When spring, love, and beauty, were all in their prime ! 
But now in their frolics when by me they pass, 
I fling at their fleeces an handlul of grass: 
Be still, then 1 cry; for it makes me quite mad, 
To see you so merry while I am so sad. 



My dog I was ever well pleased to see 
Come wagging his tail to my iair-one and me; 
And Plicebe was pleased too, and to my dog said, 
"Come hither, poor fellow ;"" and patted his head. 
But now, when lies fawning, 1 with a sour look 
Cry. sirrah ! and give liim a blow witli my crook. 
And 111 give him another; for why should not Tray 
Be as dull as his master, when Pha-bes away ? 

VI. 

When walking with Phcebe, what sights have I seen ! 
How fair was the flower, how fresh was the green! 
What a lovely appearance the trees and the shade. 
The corn-fields and hedges, and every thing made ! 
But now she has left me, though all are still there, 
They none of them now so delightful appear : 
'Twas nought but the magic, I find, of her eyes, 
]\Iade so many beautiful prospects arise. 



Sweet music went with us both all the wood through, 
The lark, linnet, throstle, and nightingale too ; 
Winds over us whisperd, flocks by us did bleat. 
And chirp went the grasshopper under our feet. 
But now she is absent, though still they sing on, 
The woods are but lonely, the melody's gone : 
Her voice in the concert, as now I have found, 
Gave every thing else its agreeable sound. 



Rose, what is become of thy delicate hue? 
And where is the violet's beautiful blue 1 
Does aught of its sweetness the blossom beguile ? 
That meadow, those daisies, why do they not smile ? 
Ah ! rivals, I see what it was that you dress'd 
And made yourselves fine for ; a place in her breast ; 



1760-1820.] BYROM. 487 

You put on your colors to pleasure her eye. 

To be pluck'd by her hand, on her bosom to die. 

IX. 

How slowly TuTie creeps, till my Phoebe return! 
While amidst the soft zephyr's cool breezes I burn ! 
Methinks if I knew whereabouts he would tread, 
I could breathe on his wings, and "twould melt down the lead. 
Fly swifter, ye minutes, bring hither my dear. 
And rest so much longer for"t when she is here. 
Ah, Colin ! old Time is full of delay, 
Nor will budge one foot faster for all thou canst say. 



Will no pitying power that hears me complain, 
Or cure my disquiet or soften my pain ? 
To be curVl, thou must, Colin, thy passion remove ; 
But M' hat swain is so silly to live without love ? 
No, Deity, bid the dear nymph to return, 
For ne'er was poor shepherd so sadly forlorn. 
Ah ! what shall I do '? I shall die with despair ! 
Take heed, all ye swains, how ye part with your fair. 



THE THREE BLACK CROWS. 

Two honest tradesmen meeting in the Strand, 
One took the other, briskly, by the hand ; 
Hark-ye, said he, 'tis an odd story this 
About the Crows ! — I dont know what it is, 
Replied his friend. — No! I'm surprised at that; 
Where I came from it is the common chat; 
But you shall hear ; an odd affair indeed ! 
And, that it happen'd, they are all agreed : 
Not to detain you from a thing so strange, 
A gentleman, that lives not far from Change, 
This week, in short, as all the alley knows, 
Taking a puke, has tlirown up three black crows.- 
Impossible ! — Nay, but it's really true ; 
I have it from good hands, and so may you. — 
From whose, I pray? — So having nam'd the man, 
Straight to inquire his curious comrade ran. 
Sir, did you tell — relating the affair — 
Yes, sir, I did : and if it's worth your care, 
Ask Mr. Such-aone, he told it me, 
But, by the by, 'twas two black crows, not three. — 

Resolv'd to trace so wond'rous an event, 
Whip, to the third, the virtuoso went. 
Sir — and so forth — Why yes; the thing is fact, 
Though in regard to number not exact; 
It was not two black crows, 'twas only oie, 
The truth of that you may depend upon. 



488 KING. [gEORGE III. 

The gentleman himself told me the case — 
Where may I find him? — Why, in such a place. 

Away goes he, and having found him out, 
Sir, be so good as to resolve a doubt — 
Then to his last informant he referr'd, 
And begg"d to know, if tnie what he had heard ? 
Did you, sir, throw up a black crow? — Not I — 
Bless me! how people propagate a lie! 
Black crows have been thrown up, three, two, and one; 
And here, I find, all comes, at last, to 7i07ie! 
Did you say nothing of a crow at alll — 
Crow — crow — perhaps I miglit, now I recall 
The matter over — and, pray, sir, what was't? 
Why, I was horrid sick, and, at the last, 
I did throw up, and told my neighbor so, 
Something that was — as black, sir, as a crow. 



WILLIAM KING, 1685—1763. 

Dr. William King, born at Stepney, in ^liddlesex, in 1685, " was known 
and esteemed," says his biographer, " by the first men of his time for wit 
and learning ; and must be allowed to have been a polite scholar, an excel- 
lent orator, and an elegant and easy writer, both in Latin and English." He 
died in 1763, having sketched his own character in an elegant epitaph, in 
which, while he acknowledges his failings, he claims the praise of benevo- 
lence, temperance, and fortitude. The work by which he is now chiefly 
known is that from which the following extracts are taken — " Political and 
Literary Anecdotes of his own Times." 



VIRGIL. 

Most of the commentators on the Greek and Boman poets 
think it sufficient to explain their author, and to give us the 
various readings. Some few indeed have made us remark the 
excellency of the poet's plan, the elegance of his diction, and 
the propriety of his thoughts, at the same time pointing out as 
examples the most striking and beautiful descriptions. Rujeus, 
in his comment on Virgil, certainly excelled all his fellow- 
laborers, who were appointed to explain and publish a series 
of the Roman classics for the use of the Dauphin. His my- 
thological, historical, and geographical notes are a great proof 
of his learning and diligence. But he hath not entered into the 
spirit of the author, and displayed the great art and judgment 
of the poet, particularly his knowledge of men and manners. 
The learned Jesuit perhaps imagined that remarks of this sort 



1760-1820.] KING. 489 

were foreign to the employment of a commentator, or for some 
political reasons he might think proper to omit them. And 
yet, in my opinion, nothing could have been more instructive 
and entertaining, as his comment was chiefly designed for the 
use of a young prince. The ^T^neicl furnishes us with many 
examples to the purpose I mention. However, that I may be 
the better understood, the following remark will explain my 
meaning. In the beginning of the first book, Juno makes a 
visit to .Mollis, and desires him to raise a storm and destroy 
the Trojan fleet, because she hated the whole nation on ac- 
count of the judgment of Paris, or, as she was pleased to 
express herself, because the Trojans were her enemies. Gens 
inimica mihi, &:c. Juno was conscious that she asked a god 
to oblige her by an act which was both unjust and cruel, and 
therefore she accompanied her request with the ofl'er of Deio- 
peia, the most beautiful nymph in her train: a powerful bribe, 
and such as she imagined .j^olus could not resist. She was 
not disappointed : ^^olus accepted her ofl'er, and executed her 
commands as far as he was able. What I have to observe here, 
in the first place, is the necessity of that short speech, in which 
Juno addresses herself to ^olus. She had no time to lose. 
The Trojan fleet was in the Tuscan sea, sailing with a fair 
wind, and in a few hours would probably have been in a safe 
harbor, ^olus therefore answered in as few words as the 
goddess had addressed herself to him. But his answer is very 
curious. He takes no notice of the ofl'er of Deiopeia, for whom 
upon any other occasion he would have thanked Juno upon 
his knees. But now, when she was given and accepted by 
him as a bribe, and as the wages of cruelty and injustice, he 
endeavored by his answer to avoid that imputation, and pre- 
tended he had such a grateful sense of the favors which Juno 
had formerly conferred on him, when she introduced him to 
Jupiter'' s table, that it was his duty to obey her commands on 
all occasions : 

Tuus, Regina, quod optes, 
Explorare labor; mihi jussa capessere fas est. 

And thus insinuated even to Juno herself, that this was the sole 
motive of his ready compliance with her request. I am here 
put in mind of something similar, which happened in Sir Robert 
AYalpole's administration. He wanted to carry a question in 
the House of Commons, to which he knew there would be 
great opposition, and which was disliked by some of his own 
dependents. As he was passing through the Court of Requests, 



490 KING. [gEORGE III. 

he met a member of the contrary party, whose avarice he imag- 
ined would not reject a large bribe. He took him aside, and 
said, " Such a question comes on this day ; give me your vote, 
and here is a bank bill of 2000/.;" which he put into his hands. 
The member made him this answer. " Sir Robert, you have 
lately served some of my particular friends ; and when my 
wife was last at court, the king was very gracious to her, 
which must have happened at your instance. I should there- 
fore think myself very ungrateful [putting the bank bill into 
his pocket) if I were to refuse the favor you are now pleased 
to ask me." This incident, if wrought up by a man of humor, 
would make a pleasant scene in a political farce. But to return 
to Virgil. The short conference between Juno and ^^olus is 
a sufficient proof of the poet's excellent judgment. It demon- 
strates his knowledge of the world, and more particularly his 
acquaintance with tlie customs and manners of a great prince's 
court. Hence we may learn, that a bribe, if it be large enough, 
and seasonably offered, will frequently overcome the virtue and 
resolution of persons of the highest rank, and that the power of 
love and beauty will sometimes corrupt a god, and compel him 
to discover a weakness unworthy of a man. 

A REPARTEE. 

A repartee, or a quick and witty answer to an insolent taunt, 
or to any ill-natured or ironical joke or question, is always well 
received (whether in a public assembly or a private company) 
by the persons M^ho hear it, and gives a reputation to the man 
who makes it. Cicero, in one of his letters to Atticus, informs 
him of some reproaches, a kind of coarse raillery, which passed 
between himself and Clodius in the senate, and seems to exult 
and value himself much on his own repartees: though I do 
not think that this was one of Cicero's excellencies. Atter- 
bury. Bishop of Rochester, when a certain bill was brought 
into the House of Lords, said, among other things, " that he 
prophesied last ivinter this bill ivould be attempted in the 
present session, and he icas sorry to find that he had proved 
a true prophets My Lord Coningsby, who spoke after the 
bishop, and always spoke in a passion, desired the House to 
remark, ''that one of the Right Reverends had set himself forth 
as a prophet; but for his part he did not know what prophet 
to liken him to, unless to that furious prophet Balaam, who 
was reproved by his own ass.'" The bishop, in a reply, with 
great wit and calmness, exposed this rude attack, concluding 



1760-1820.] KING. 491 

thus : " since the noble Lord hath discovered in our manners 
such a similitude, I am well content to be compared to the 
prophet Balaam : but, my Lords, I am at a loss how to make 
out the other part of the parallel: I am sure that I have been 
reproved by nobody but his Lordship.''' 

SINGULAR CONDUCT. 

About the year 1706, I knew one Mr. Howe, a sensible 
well-natured man, possessed of an estate of s6700 or ^6800 per 
annum : he married a young lady of a good family in the west 
of England ; her maiden name was Mallet; she was agreeable in 
her person and manners, and proved a very good wife. Seven 
or eight years after they had been married, he rose one morning 
very early, and told his wife he was obliged to go to the Tower 
to transact some particular business : the same day, at noon, his 
wife received a note from him, in which he informed her that 
he was under a necessity of going to Holland, and should pro- 
bably be absent three weeks or a month. He was absent from 
her seventeen years, during which time she neither heard from 
him, or of him. The evening before he returned, whilst she 
was at supper, and with her some of her friends and relations, 
particularly one Dr. Rose,' a physician, who had married her 
sister, a billet, without any name subscribed, was delivered to 
her, in which the writer requested the favor of her to give him 
a meeting the next evening in the Birdcage Walk, in St. James's 
Park. When she had read her billet, she tossed it to Dr. Rose, 
and laughing, "You see, brother," said she, " as old as I am, I 
have got a gallant." Rose, who perused the note with more 
attention, declared it to be Mr. Howe's hand-writing: this sur- 
prised all the company, and so much affected Mrs. Howe, that 
she fainted away ; however, she soon recovered, when it was 
agreed that Dr. Rose and his wife, with the other gentlemen 
and ladies who were then at supper, should attend Mrs. Howe 
the next evening to the Birdcage Walk : they had not been there 
more than five or six minutes, when Mr. Howe came to them, 
and after saluting his friends, and embracing his wife, walked 
home with her, and they lived together in great harmony from 
that time to the day of his death. But the most curious part of 
my tale remains to be related.*" When Howe left his wife, they 

1 " I was very well acquainted with Dr. Rose, and he frequently entertained 
me with this remarkable story." 

2 London is the only place in all Europe where a man can find a secure 
retreat, or remain, if he pleases, many years unknown. If he pays constantly 



492 KING. [gEORGE III. 

lived in a house in Jermyn-street, near St. James's church ; he 
went no farther than to a little street in Westminster, where he 
took a room, for which he paid five or six shillings a week, and 
changing his name, and disguising himself by wearing a black 
wig (for he was a fair man), he remained in this habitation dur- 
ing the whole time of his absence. He had had two children 
by his wife when he departed from her, who were both living 
at that time : but they both died young in a few years after. 
However, during their lives, the second or third year after their 
father disappeared, Mrs. Howe was obliged to apply for an act 
of parliament to procure a proper settlement of her husband's 
estate, and a provision for herself out of it during his absence, 
as it was uncertain whether he was alive or dead: this act he 
suffered to be solicited and passed, and enjoyed the pleasure of 
reading the progress of it in the votes, in a little coffee-house, 
near his lodging, which he frequented. Upon his quitting his 
house and family in the manner I have mentioned, Mrs. Howe 
at first imagined, as she could not conceive any other cause for 
such abrupt elopement, that he had contracted a large debt un- 
known to her, and by that means involved himself in difficulties 
which he could not easily surmount; and for some days she lived 
in continual apprehensions of demands from creditors, of seizures, 
executions, &;c. But nothing of this kind happened ; on the con- 
trary, he did not only leave his estate quite free and unencumbered, 
but he paid the bills of every tradesman with whom he had any 
dealings ; and upon examining his papers, in due time after he 
was gone, proper receipts and discharges were found from all 
persons, whether tradesmen or others, with whom he had any 
manner of transactions or money concerns. Mrs. Howe, after 
the death of her children, thought proper to lessen her family 
of servants, and the expenses of her housekeeping; and, there- 
fore, removed from her house in Jermyn-street to a little house 
in Brewer-street, near Golden Square. Just over against her 
lived one Salt,' a corn-chandler. About ten years after Howe's 
abdication, he contrived to make an acquaintance with Salt, and 
was at length in such a degree of intimacy with him, that he 
usually dined with Salt once or twice a week. From the room 
in which they eat, it was not difficult to look into Mrs. Howe's 
dining-room, where she generally sate and received her com- 

for his lodging, for his provisions, and for whatsoever else he wants, nobody 
will ask a question concerning him, or inquire whence he comes, or whither 
he goes. * 

1 " I knew Salt, who related to me the particulars which I have here men- 
tioned, and many others, which have escaped my memory." 



1760-1820.] SHENSTONE. 493 

pany ; and Salt, who believed Howe to be a bachelor, frequently- 
recommended his own wife to him as a suitable match. During 
the last seven years of this gentleman's absence, he went every 
Sunday to St. James's church, and used to sit in Mr. Salt's 
seat, where he had a view of his wife, but could not easily be 
seen by her. After he returned home, he never would confess, 
even to his most intimate friends, what was the real cause of 
such a singular conduct; apparently, there was none: but what- 
ever it was, he was certainly ashamed to own it. Dr. Rose 
has often said to me, that he believed his brother Howe' would 
never have returned to his wife, if the money which he took 
with him, which was supposed to have been ^61000 or ^2000, 
had not been all spent : and he must have been a good econo- 
mist, and frugal in his manner of living, otherwise his money 
would scarce have held out ; for I imagine he had his whole 
fortune by him, I mean what he carried away with him in 
money or bank bills, and daily took out of his bag, like the 
Spaniard in Gil Bias, what was sufficient for his expenses. 



WILLIAM SHENSTONE, 1714—1763. 

This lover of rural life was born at the Leasowes, in Shropshire, in 1714, 
and was distinguished, even in childhood, for his love of reading and thirst for 
knowledge. He was first taught to read by an old village dame, whom he 
has immortalized in his poem after Spenser's manner, called " The School 
Mistress." He was sent to Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1732, where he 
continued his studies for ten years. Here he published his principal poems 
at intervals, which consist of elegies, odes, ballads, the Judgment of Her- 
cules, and several other pieces. In 1745 he went to reside on his paternal 
estate, to which he devoted all his time, talents, and capital, so that the 
Leasowes became, under his care, a perfect fairy-land. He died on the 
J 1th of February, 1763. 

" Shenstone is a pleasing writer," saysi Campbell, " both in his hghter and 
graver vein. His genius is not forcible, but it settles in mediocrity without 
meanness. But with all the beauties of the Leasowes in our minds, it may 
still be regretted, that, instead of devoting his whole soul to clumping beeches, 
and projecting mottoes for summer-houses, he had not gone more into living 

' "And yet I have seen him after his return addressing his wife in the lan- 
guage of a young bridegroom. And I have been assured by some of his most 
intimate friends, that he treated her during the rest of their lives with the 
greatest kindness and affection." 



! 



494 SHENSTONE. [gEORGE III. 

nature for subjects, and described her interesting realities with the same 
fond and natural touches which give so much delightfulness to his portrait of 



THE SCHOOL MISTRESS. 

Ah me ! full sorely is my heart forlorn, 

To think how modest worth neglected lies; 
While partial fiime doth with her blasts adorn 
Such deeds alone, as pride and pomp disguise; 
Deeds of ill sort, and mischievous emprize: 
Lend me thy clarion, goddess! let me try 
To sound the praise of merit, ere it dies ; 
Such as I oft have chaunced to espy, 

Lost in the dreary shades of dull obscurity. 

In every village mark'd with little spire, 

Emlx)wer'd in trees, and hardly known to fame, 
There dwells, in lowly shed, and mean attire, 
A matron old, whom we school-mistress name; 
Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame; 
They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent, 
Aw'd by the power of this relentless dame ; 
And oft times, on vagaries idly bent, 

For unkempt hair, or task unconn'd, are sorely shent. 

And all in sight doth rise a birchen tree, 

Which learning near her little dome did stow; 

Whilom a twig of small regard to see. 

Though now so wide its waving branches flow; 

And work the simple vassals mickle woe; 

For not a wind might curl the leaves that blew, 

But their limbs shudder"d, and their pulse beat low; 

And as they look'd they found their horror grew, 

And shap'd it into rods, and tingled at the view. 



Near to this dome is found a patch so green. 
On which the tribe their gambols do display; 
And at the door imprisoning board is seen, 
Lest weakly wights of smaller size should stray; 
Eager, perdie, to bask in sunny day ! 
The noises intermix"d, which thence resound. 
Do learning's little tenement betray : 
Where sits the dame, disguis'd in look profound. 

And eyes her fairy throng, and turns her wheel around. 

Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow, 
Emblem right meet of decency does yield: 
Her apron dy"d in grain, as blue, I trowe. 
As is the hare-bell that adorns the field : 
And in her hand, for sceptre, she does wield 
Tway birchen sprays ; with anxious fear entwin'd, 
With dark distrust, and sad repentance fill'd ; 



1760-1820.] SHENSTONE. 495 

And stedfast hate, and sharp affliction join'd, 
And fury uncontroU'd, and chastisement unkind. 



A russet stole was o'er her shoulders thrown 5 

A russet kirtle fenc"d the nipping air ; 

'Twas simple russet, but it was her own; 

'Twas her own country bred the flock so fair! 

'Twas her own labor did the fleece prepare; 

And, sooth to say, her pupils, rang"d around, 

Through pious awe, did term it passing rare ; 

For they in gapiug wonderment abound. 
And think, no doubt, she been the greatest wight on ground. 

Albeit ne flattery did corrupt her triith, 

Ne pompous title did debauch her ear; 

Goody, good-woman, gossip, n'aunt, forsooth, 

Or dame, the sole additions she did hear; 

Yet these she challengxl, these she held right dear : 

Ne would esteem him act as mought behove, 

Who should not honor'd eld with these revere : 

For never title yet so mean could prove, 
But there \vas eke a mind which did that title love. 

One ancient hen she took delight to feed, 

The plodding pattern of the busy dame ; 

Which, ever and anon, impell'd by need, 

Into her school, begirt with chickens, came ; 

Such favor did her past deportment claim ; 

And, if neglect had lavish"d on the ground 

Fragment of bread, she would collect the same ; 

For well she knew, and quaintly could expound, 
What sin it were to waste the smallest crumb she found. 



Here oft the dame, on Sabbath's decent eve, 

Hymned such psalms as Sternhold forth did mete ; 
If winter 'twere, she to her hearth did cleave, 
But in her garden found a summer seat ; 
Sweet melody ! to hear her then repeat 
How Israel's sons, beneath a foreign king, 
While taunting foemen did a song intreat, 
All, for the nonce, untuning every string, 

Uphung their useless lyres — small heart had they to sing. 

For she was just, and friend to virtuous lore. 
And pass'd much time in truly virtuous deed; 
And, in those elfin's ears, would oft deplore 
The times, vi^hen truth by popish rage did bleed; 
And tortious death was true devotion's meed; 
And simple faidi in iron chains did mourn. 
That nonld on wooden image place her creed; 
And lawny saints in smouldering flames did burn : 

Ah ! dearest Lord, forefend, thilk days should e'er returiu 



496 DODSLEY. [GEORGE III, 

In elbow-chair, like that of Scottish stem 
By the sharp tooth of cankering eld defac'd, 
In which, when he receives his diadem, 
Our sovereign prince and liefest liege is plac'd, 
The matron sate ; and some with rank she grac'd, 
(The source of children's and of courtier"? pride !) 
Redress'd affronts, for vile affronts there pass"d; 
And warn'd them not the fretful to deride, 

But love each other dear, whatever them betide. 

Right well she knew each temper to descry; 
To thwart the proud, and the submiss to raise ; 
Some with vile copper-prize exalt on high. 
And some entice with pittance small of praise ; 
And other some with baleful sprig she 'frays : 
Ev"n absent, she the reins of power doth hold. 
While with quaint arts, the giddy crowd she sways j 
Forewarn'd, if little bird their pranks behold, 

'Twill whisper in her ear, and all the scene unfold. 



But now Dan Phoebus gains the middle sky, 
And liberty unljars her prison door ; 
And like a rushing torrent out tliey fly, 
And now the grassy cirque had cover'd o'er 
With boisterous revel-rout and wild uproar ; 
A thousand ways in wanton rings they run, 
Heaven shield their short-liv'd pastimes, I implore ! 
For well may freedom, erst so dearly won, 

Appear to British elf more gladsome than the sun. 

Enjoy, poor imps ! enjoy your sportive trade, 
And chase gay flies, and cull the fairest flowers, 
For when my bon^s in grass-green sods are laid; 
For never may ye taste more careless hours 
In knightly castles or in ladies' bowers, 
O vain to seek dehght in earthly thing! 
But most in courts where proud ambition towers ; 
Deluded wight! who weens fair peace can spring 

Beneath the pompous dome of kesar or of king. 



ROBERT DODSLEY, 1703-1764. 

This eminent bookseller and respectable author, was born at Mansfield. 
in 1703. Being placed as an apprentice to a stocking- weaver, and not Uking 
his situation, he ran off to London, and took the place of a footman, and in 
1732 published a volume of poems under the title of " The Muse in Livery, 
or the Footman's Miscellany," which attracted considerable attention. His 
nezt production was a dramatic piece called " The Toyshop," which was 






1760-1820.] DODSLEY. 497 

acted with great success, and the profits of which enabled him to set up as 
a bookseller. Patronized by Pope and other authors of the day, his shop in 
Pall Mall soon became the resort of a large literary circle ; and so rapidly did 
his business increase, that in his latter days Dodsley might be considered as 
standing at the head of the bookseUing trade in London. Having acquired 
a competent fortune by his double occupation of author and bookseller, he 
retired from business, to enjoy the fruits of his exertions, but died at Dur- 
ham, while on a visit to a friend, September 25th, 1764. 

Besides the above, Dodsley wrote and published anonymously, that well 
known and ingenious little Vv'ork, " The Economy of Human Life," which 
is full of the best mioral maxims. He also wrote a tragedy called " Cleone," 
which was well received, and a farce called, " The King and the Miller of 
Mansfield." But he is now more known from the works which he pro- 
jected and published, than for his own productions. One of these was the 
" Preceptor," a very useful book, in 2 vols., containing treatises on various 
subjects, and for which Dr. Johnson wrote a preface. Another was his 
" Collection of Old Plays," in 12 vols. But he is most known as the pro- 
jector of the " Annual Register," in 1758, which still goes by his name. 
He also has the credit of having first encouraged the talents of Dr. Johnson, 
by purchasing his poem of " London," in 1738, for the sum of ten guineas, 
and of having, many years afterwards, been the projector of the English 
Dictionary. 

EMULATION. 

If thy soul thirsteth for honor, if thy ear hath any pleasure 
in the voice of praise, raise thyself from the dust whereof thou 
art made, and exalt thy aim to something that is praise- worthy. 

The oak, that now spreadeth its branches tov/ards the hea- 
vens, was once but an acorn in the bowels of the earth. 

Endeavor to be first in thy calling, whatever it be ; neither 
let any one go before thee in well-doing : nevertheless, do not 
envy the merits of another, but improve thine own. talents. 

Scorn also to depress thy competitor by dishonest or un- 
worthy methods ; strive to raise thyself above him only by ex- 
celling him : so shall thy contest for superiority be crowned 
with honor, if not with success. 

By a virtuous em.ulation the spirit of man is exalted within 
him; he panteth after fame, and rejoiceth as a racer to run his 
course. 

He riseth like the palm-tree in spite of oppression ; and as 
an eagle in the firmament of heaven, he soareth aloft, and fixeth 
his eye upon the glories of the sun. 

The examples of eminent men are in his visions by night; 
and his delight is to follow them all the dav long. 
32 



498 DODSLEY, [gEORGE III. 

He formeth great designs ; he rejoiceth in the execution there- 
of; and his name goeth forth to the ends of the world. 

But the heart of the envious man is gall and bitterness ; his 
tongue spitteth venom ; the success of his neighbor breaketh his 
rest. 

He sitteth in his cell repining ; and the good that happeneth 
to another is to him an evil. 

Hatred and malice feed upon his lieart ; and there is no rest 
in him. 

He feeleth in his own breast no love of goodness; and there- 
fore believeth his neighbor is like unto himself. 

He endeavors to depreciate those who excel him ; and put- 
teth an evil interpretation on all their doings. 

He lyeth on the watch, and meditates mischief: but the de- 
testation of man pursueth him ; he is crushed as a spider in his 
own web. 



TEMPERANCE. 

The nearest approach thou canst make to happiness on this 
side the grave, is to enjoy from heaven health, wisdom, and 
peace of mind. 

These blessings, if thou possessest, and wouldst preserve to 
old age, avoid the allurements of voluptuousness, and fly from 
her temptations. 

When she spreadeth her delicacies on the board, when her 
wine sparkleth in the cup, when she smileth upon thee, and 
persuadeth thee to be joyful, and happy; then is the hour of 
danger, then let Reason stand firmly on her guard. 

For, if thou hearkenest unto the words of her adversary, thou 
art deceived and betrayed. 

The joy which she promiseth, changeth to madness ; and her 
enjoyments lead on to diseases and death. 

Look round her board, cast thine eyes upon her guests, and 
observe those who have been allured by her smiles, who have 
listened to her temptations. 

Are they not meagre ? are they not sickly ? are they noi 
spiritless ? 

Their short hours of jollity and riot are followed by tedious 
days of pain and dejection ; she hath debauched and palled their 
appetites, that they have now no relish for her nicest dainties : 
her votaries are become her victims ; the just and natural con- 
sequence which God hath ordained, in the constitution of 
things, for the punishment of those who abuse his gifts. 



1760-1820.] DODSLEY. 499 

But who is she, that with graceful steps, and with a lively 
air, trips over yonder plain ? 

The rose blusheth on her cheeks ; the sweetness of the 
morning breatheth from her lips; joy, tempered with innocence 
and modesty, sparkleth in her eyes ; and from the cheerfulness 
of her heart, she singeth as she walks. 

Her name is Health ; she is the daughter of Exercise and 
Temperance; their sons inhabit the mountains; they are brave, 
active, and lively ; and partake of all the beauties and virtues of 
their sister. 

Vigor stringeth their nerves; strength dwelleth in their bones ; 
and labor is their delight all the day long. 

The employments of their father excite their appetites, and 
the repasts of their mother refresh them. 

To combat the passions, is their delight ; to conquer evil 
habits, their glory. 

Their pleasures are moderate, and, therefore, they endure ; 
their repose is short, but sound and undisturbed. 

Their blood is pure ; their minds are serene ; and the phy- 
sician knoweth not the way to their habitations. 

ANGER. 

As the whirlwind in its fury teareth up trees, and deformeth 
the face of Nature, or as an earthquake in its convulsions over- 
turneth cities ; so the rage of an angry man throweth mischief 
around him ; danger and destruction wait on his hand. 

But consider, and forget not, thine own weakness ; so shalt 
thou pardon the failings of others. 

Indulge not thyself in the passion of anger ; it is whetting a 
sword to wound thy own breast, or murder thy friend. 

If thou bearest slight provocations with patience, it shall be 
imputed unto thee for wisdom ; and if thou wipest them from 
thy remembrance, thy heart shall feel rest, thy mind shall not 
reproach thee. 

Do nothing in thy passion. Why wilt thou put to sea in 
the violence of a storm ? 

If it be difficult to rule thine anger, it is wise to prevent it ; 
avoid, therefore, all occasions of falling into wrath ; or guard 
thyself against them whenever they occur. 

A fool is provoked with insolent speeches, but a wise man 
laugheth them to scorn. 

Harbor not revenge in thy breast ; it will torment thy heart, 
and discolor its best inclinations. 



500 DODSLEY. [gEORGE III. 

Be always more ready to forgive, than to return an injury : 
he that watches for an opportunity of revenge, lieth in wait 
against himself, and draweth down mischief on his own head. 

A mild answer to an angry man, like water cast upon the 
fire, abateth his heat; and from an enemy, he shall become thy 
friend. 

Consider how few things are worthy of anger; and thou wilt 
wonder that any but fools should be wroth. 

In folly or weakness it always beginneth ; but remember, 
and be well assured, it seldom concludeth without repentance. 

On the heels of Folly treadeth Shame ; at the back of Anger 
standeth Remorse. 

WOMAN. 

Give ear, fair daughter of Love, to the instructions of Pru- 
dence ; and let the precepts of Truth sink deep in thine heart: 
so shall the charms of thy mind add lustre to thy form ; and thy 
beauty, like the rose it resembleth, shall retain ils sweetness, 
when its bloom is withered. 

In the spring of thy youth, in the morning of thy days, when 
the eyes of men gaze on thee with delight; ah! hear with cau- 
tion their alluring words ; guard well thy heart, nor listen to 
their soft seducements. 

Remember, thou art made man's reasonable companion, not 
the slave of his passion; the end of thy being is to assist him 
in the toils of life, to soothe him -with thy tenderness, and re- 
compense his care with soft endearments. 

Who is she that winneth the heart of man, that subdueth him 
to love, and reigneth in his breast ? 

Lo ! yonder she walketh in maiden sweetness, with innocence 
in her mind, and modesty on her cheek. 

Her hand seekelh employment ; her foot delighteth not in 
gadding abroad. 

She is clothed with neatness ; she is fed with temperance : 
humility and meekness are as a crown of glory circling her 
head. 

On her tongue dwelleth music ; the sweetness of honey tlow- 
eth from her lips. 

Decency is in all her words ; in her answers are mildness and 
truth. 

Submission and obedience are the lessons of her life ; and 
peace and happiness her reward. 



1760-1820.] DODSLEY. 501 

Before her steps walketh Prudence ; Virtue attendeth at her 
right hand. 

Her eye speaketh softness and love ; but Discretion with a 
sceptre sitteth on her brow. 

The tongue of the Hcentious is dumb in her presence ; the 
awe of her virtue keepeth him silent. 

When Scandal is busy, and the fame of her neighbor is tossed 
from tongue to tongue, if Charity and Good-nature open not her 
mouth, the finger of Silence resteth on her lip. 

Her breast is the mansion of goodness ; and therefore she 
suspecteth no evil in others. 

Happy were the man that should make her his wife ; happy 
the child that shall call her mother. 

She presideth in the house, and there is peace; she com- 
mandeth with judgment, and is obeyed. 

She ariseth in the morning; she considers her affairs; and 
appointeth to every one their proper business. 

The care of her family is her whole delight; to that alone 
she applieth her study : and elegance with frugality is seen in 
her mansions. 

The prudence of her management is an honor to her hus- 
band, and he heareth her praise with silent delight. 

She informeth the minds of her children with wisdom : she 
fashioneth their manners from the example of her own goodness. 

The word of her mouth is the law of their youth; the mo- 
tion of her eye commandeth their obedience. 

She speaketh, and her servants fly ; she pointeth, and the 
thing is done: for the law of love is in their hearts : her kind- 
ness addeth wings to their feet. 

In prosperity she is not puffed up ; in adversity she healeth 
the wounds of Fortune with patience. 

The troubles of her husband are alleviated by her counsels, 
and sweetened by her endearments; he putteth his heart in her 
bosom, and receiveth comfort. 

Happy is the man that hath made her his wife ; happy the 
child that calleth her mother. 



RICH AND POOR. 

The man to whom God hath given riches, and a mind to 
employ them aright, is peculiarly favored, and highly distin- 
guished. 

He looketh on his wealth with pleasure; because it affordeth 
him the means to do good. 



502 DODSLEY. [gEORGE II!. 

He protecteth the poor that are injured; he suffereth not the 
mighty to oppress the weak. 

He seeketh out objects of compassion; he inquireth into 
their wants; he reheveth them with judgment, and without 
ostentation. 

He assisteth and rewardeth merit ; he encourageth ingenuity, 
and liberally promoteth every useful design. 

He carrieth on great works; his country is enriched, and the 
laborer is employed; he formeth new schemes, and the arts re- 
ceive improvement. 

He considereth the superfluities of his table as belonging to 
the poor, and he defraudeth them not. 

The benevolence of his mind is not checked by his fortune. 
He rejoiceth therefore in riches, and his joy is blameless. 

But woe unto him that heapeth up wealth in abundance, and 
rejoiceth alone in the possession thereof. 

That grindeth the face of the poor, and considereth not the 
sweat of their brows. 

He thriveth on oppression without feeling ; the ruin of his 
brother disturbeth him not. 

The tears of the orphan he drinketh as milk ; the cries of the 
widow are music to his ear. 

His heart is hardened with the love of wealth ; no grief or 
distress can make impression upon it. 

But the curse of iniquity pursueth him ; he liveth in con- 
tinual fear. The anxiety of his mind, and the rapacious de- 
sires of his own soul, take vengeance upon him for the calamities 
he hath brought upon others. 

! what are the miseries of poverty, in comparison with the 
gnawings of this man's heart ! 

Let the poor man comfort himself, yea, rejoice ; for he hath 
many reasons. 

He sitteth down to his morsel in peace ; his table is not 
crowded with flatterers and devourers. 

He is not embarrassed with dependents, nor teased with the 
clamors of solicitation. 

Debarred from the dainties of the rich, he escapeth all their 
diseases. 

The bread that he eateth, is it not sweet to his taste ? the 
water he drinketh, is it not pleasant to his thirst? yea, far more 
delicious than the richest draughts of the luxurious. 

His labor preserveth his health, and produceth him a repose 
to which the downy bed of Sloth is a stranger. 

He limiteth his desires with humility; and the calm of con- 



1760-1820.] YOUNG. 503 

tentment is sweeter to liis soul than the acquirements of wealth 
and grandeur. 

Let not the rich, therefore, presume on his riches, nor the 
poor despond in his poverty ; for the providence of God dis- 
penseth happiness to them l3oth, and the distribution thereof is 
more equally made than the fool can believe. 

BENEVOLENCE. 

When thou considerest thy wants, when thou beholdest thy 
imperfections, acknowledge his goodness, O Man ! who ho- 
nored thee with reason, endowed thee with speech, and placed 
thee in society, to receive and confer reciprocal helps and mu- 
tual obligations. 

Thy food, thy clothing, thy convenience of habitation, thy 
protection from the injuries, thy enjoyment of the comforts and 
the pleasures of life, thou owest to the assistance of others, and 
couldst not enjoy but in the bands of society. 

It is thy duty, therefore, to be friendly to mankind, as it is 
thy interest that men should be friendly to thee. 

As the rose breatheth sweetness from its own nature, so the 
heart of a benevolent man produceth good works. 

He enjoyeth the ease and tranquillity of his own breast; and 
rejoiceth in the happiness and prosperity of his neighbor. 

He openeth not his ear unto slander ; the faults and the fail- 
ings of men give pain to his heart. 

His desire is to do good, and he searcheth out the occasions 
thereof: in removing the oppression of another he relieveth 
himself. 

From the largeness of his mind he comprehendeth in his 
wishes the happiness of all men ; and from ll i generosity of his 
heart he endeavoreth to promote it. 



EDWARD YOUNG, 1681—1765. 

Edwakd Young, the celebrated author of the " Night Thoughts," was 
born at Upham, in Hampshire, in 1681. He was educated at Oxford, where 
he took his degree of Bachelor of Civil Law in 1714, and his Doctor's degree 
in 1719. That he vv^as distinguished for his ingenuity and learning above his 
fellow-students and cotemporaries, is known by a complaint of Tindal the 
infidel, who said, "the other boys I can always answer, because I know 
where they have their arguments, which I have read a hundred times : but 



504 YOUNG. [gEORGE III. 

that fellow Young is continually pestering me with something of his own." 
After publishing a number of poetical pieces of rather indifferent merit, in 
1721 he gave to the pubhc his tragedy of " Revenge," which is one of the 
finest efforts of his genius ; but unfortunately it was written after the model 
of the French drama, and though the thoughts are refined and full of imagi- 
nation, and a true poetic feeling pervades the whole, it has hardly vitality 
enough to keep it alive as a drama. 

In 1725 he published the first of his Satires, and in three or four years the 
other six followed, under the title of "The Love of Fame, the Universal 
Passion." They are evidently the production of a mind rendered acute by 
observation, enriched by reflection, and pohshed with wit ; and they abound 
in ingenious and humorous allusions. Their chief defect is in the perpetual 
exaggeration of the sentiment. Goldsmith says, that " they were in higher 
reputation when published, than they stand at present;" and that " Young 
seems fonder of dazzhng than of pleasing, of raising our admiration for his 
wit than of our dislike of the folhes he ridicules."' 

In 1728 Young entered the church, and was appointed chaplain to George 
the Second. Three years after he married Lady Elizabeth Lee, daughter 
of the Earl of Litchfield, and widow of Colonel Lee. She died in 1741, 
leaving one son. A daughter whom she had by her former husband, and 
who was married to Mr. Temple, son of Lord Palmerston, died in 1736, and 
Mr. Temple four years after. It has generally been believed that Mr. and 
Mrs. Temple were the Philander and Narcissa of the Night Thoughts. 
Mrs. Temple died of a consumption, at Lyons, on her way to Nice, and 
Young accompanied her to the continent.^ Some, most inconsiderately, 
have identified Young's son with the Lorenzo of the Night Thoughts. This 
is absurd, for when this character of the finished infidel was drawn by the 
father, the son was only eight years old. 

Of the Night Thoughts, which were published from 1742 to 1744, Young's 
favorite and post finished poem, it may be said, that they show a mind stored 
with reading and reflection, purified by virtuous feelings, and supported by 
religious hope. There are in them great fertility of thought and luxuriance of 
imagination, uncommon originality in style, and an accumulation of argu- 
ment and illustration which seems almost boundless.^ "In this poem," 
says Dr. Johnson, "Young has exhibited a very wide display of original 
poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions ; a wilderness 

* Essay on English Poetry. Young's Satires were published before those 
of Pope. 

2 To her death at Lyons the two lines in IVight Third doubtless allude, for 
the city authorities refused to allow her to be buried in '•' consecrated" 
ground. 

" While Nature melted, Superstition rav'd ; 
That mourn'd the dead, and this deny'd a grave. 

3 See Life, by Rev. J. Mitford. Read, also, his Life by Dr. Johnson — a 
biographical sketch in Drake's Essays — and another in the sixth volume of 
Campbell's Specimens. The criticisms of the latter, however, I cannot con- 
sider just. 



1760-1820.] YOUNG. 505 

of thought, in which the fertihty of fancy scatters flowers of every hue, and 
of every odor." 

In 1756 Dr. Joseph Warton paid a very just and elegant tribute to the 
poetical reputation of Young, by dedicating to him his most learned and 
instructive "Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope." Young was at 
that time the only survivor of that brotherhood of poets who had adorned 
and delighted the preceding age, and among whom Pope shone with such 
unrivalled lustre. In i762, when he was upwards of fourscore. Young 
printed his poem of " Resignation," in which, for the first time, a decay of 
his powers is manifested. In April, 1765, he closed his long, useful, and 
virtuous life. He had performed no duty for the last three or four years, 
but he retained his intellects to the last. 

In his personal manners. Young is said to have been a man of very social 
habits, and the animating soul of every company with whom he mixed. 
Nobody ever said more brilliant things in conversation. Dr. Warton, who 
knew him well, says that he v/as one of the most amiable and benevolent of 
men, most exemplary in his life and sincere in his religion. If he stooped 
below the dignity of his high profession, in courting worldly favor and ap- 
plause, as without doubt he did, no one has more convincingly shown how 
utterly worthless was the object of this inconsistent ambition. 

As a poet, if he ranks not in the first class, he takes a very high place in 
the second. If his taste be not the purest, or his judgment not always the 
best, he has an exuberance, a vigor, and an originality of genius, which 
amply atone for all his defects. As respects the moral influence of his 
poetry, there has been and can be but one opinion. No one can rise from 
the studious reading of the Night Thoughts, without feeling more the value 
of time, and the importance of improving it aright, both for the life that now 
is, and for that which is to come. It is a book full of the purest and noblest 
sentiments, which, if followed, can not fail of making us wiser and better. 



INTRODUCTION TO THE NIGHT THOUGHTS. THE VALUE OF TIME. 
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 

Tir'd Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep ! 
He, like the world, his ready visit pays 
Where Fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes; 
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe, 
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear. 

Froni short (as usual) and disturb'd repose, 
I wake : How happy they, who wake no more ! 
Yet that were vain, if dreams infest the grave. 
I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams 
Tumultuous ; where my wrecked desponding thought, 
From wave to wave of fancied misery, 
At random drove, her helm of reason lost. 
Though now restor'd, 'tis only change of pain, 
(A bitter change!) severer for severe. 
The Day too short for my distress ; and Night, 



506 YOUNG. [george III. 

Ev'n in the zenith of her dark domain, 
Is sunshine to the color of my fate. 

Night, sable goddess ! from her ebon throne, 
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth 
Her leaden sceptre oer a slumbering world. 
Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound! 
Nor eye, nor listening ear, an object finds; 
Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the general pulse 
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause ; 
An awful pause ! prophetic of her end. 
And let her prophecy be soon fulfiU'd; 
Fate ! drop the curtain ; I can lose no more. 

The bell strikes one. We take no note of time 
But from its loss. To give it then a tongue, 
Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke, 
I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright. 
It is the knell of my departed hours: 
Where are they? With the years beyond the flood. 
It is the signal that demantls despatch : 
How much is to be done ? My hopes and fears 
Start up alarm'd, and o'er hfes narrow verge 
Look down — On what? a fathondess abyss; 
A dread eternity! how surely mine! 
And can eternity belong to me, 

Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour? 
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, 

How complicate, how wonderful is man! 

How passing wonder He, who made him such ! 

Who centred in our make such strange extremes ! 

From different natures marvellously mixt. 

Connection exquisite of distant worlds! 

Distinguishd link in Beings endless chain! 

IVlidway from Nothing to the Deity! 

A beam ethereal, sully"d, and absorpt! 

Though sully"d and dishonor'd, still divine ! 

Dim miniature of greatness absolute ! 

An heir of glory ! a frail child of dust ! 

Helpless immortal ! insect infinite ! 

A worm ! a god ! — I tremble at myself, 

And in myself am lost ! at home a stranger, 

Thought wanders up and down, surpris'd, aghast, 

And wondering at her own: How reason reels! 

O what a miracle to man is man, 

Triumphantly distress"d! what joy, what dread! 

Alternately transported, and alarm"d ! 

What can preserve my life ! or what destroy ! 

An augeUs arm cant snatch me from the grave ; 

Legions of angels can't confine me there. 

"Tis past conjecture; all things rise in proof: 

While o'er my limbs sleep's soft dominion spread, 

What though my soul fantastic measures trod 

O'er fairy fields ; or mourn'd along the gloom 



1760-1 820 J YOUNG. 507 

Of pathless woods ; or, down the craggy steep 

Hurl'd headlong, swam with pain the mantled pool; 

Or scal'd the cliff; or danc'd on hollow winds, 

With antic shapes, wild natives of the brain ? 

Her ceaseless flight, though devious, speaks her nature 

Of subtler essence than the trodden clod ; 

Active, aerial, towering, unconfin'd, 

Unfetter'd with her gross companion's fall, 

Ev'n silent night proclaims my soul immortal : 

Ev'n silent night proclaims eternal day. 

For human weal, heaven husbands all events ; 

Dull sleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain. 

Why then their loss deplore, that are not lost ! 
Why wanders wretched thought their tombs around, 
In infidel distress! Are Angels there? 
Slumbers, rak'd up in dust, ethereal fire '? 

They live! they greatly live a life on earth 
Unkindled, unconceiv'd ; and from an eye 
Of tenderness let heavenly pity fall 
On me, more justly numbered with the dead. 
This is the desert, this the solitude : 
How populous, how vital, is the grave ! 
This is creation's melancholy vault. 
The vale funereal, the sad cypress gloom; 
The land of apparitions, empty shades! 
All, all on earth, is Shadow, all beyond 
Is Substance; the reverse is folly's creed: 
How solid all, where change shall be no more ! 

Yet man, fool man ! here buries all his thoughts ; 
Inters celestial hopes without one sigh. 
Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon. 
Here pinions all his wishes; wing'd by heaven 
To fly at infinite ; and reach it there, 
Where seraphs gather immortality. 
On life's fair tree, fast by the throne of God. 
What golden joys ambrosial clustering glow, 
In His full beam, and ripen for the just, 
Where momentary ages are no more ! 
Where time, and pain, and chance, and death expire! 
And is it in the flight of threescore years, 
To push eternity from human thought, 
And smother souls immortal in the dust? 
A soul immortal, spending all her fires, 
Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, 
Thrown into tumult, raptur'd or alarra'd, 
At aught this scene can threaten or indulge, 
Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, 
To waft a feather, or to drown a fly. 



508 YOUNG. fcEORGE III. 



man's resolutions to reform. 

Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears 
The pahn, " That all men are about to live," 
For ever on the brink of being born. 
All pay themselves the compliment to think 
They one day shall not drivel: and their pride 
On this reversion takes up ready praise ; 
At least, their own ; their future selves applaud; 
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead ! 
Time lodgVl in their own hands is folly's vails; 
That lodg'd in fate's, to wisdom they consign ; 
The thing they cant but purpose, they postpone; 
Tis not m folly, not to scorn a fool ; 
And scarce in human wisdom, to do more. 
All promise is poor dilatory man. 
And that through every stage : when young, indeed, 
In full content we, sometimes, nobly rest, 
Unanxious for ourselves ; and only wish, 
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise. 
At thirty man suspects himself a fool: 
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan ; 
At fifty chides his infamous delay. 
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; 
In all the magnanimity of thought 
Resolves ; and re-resolves : then dies the same. 

And why? Because he thinks himself immortal. 
All men think all men mortal, but themselves; 
Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate 
Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread; 
But their hearts wounded, like the M'ounded air, 
Soon close; where, past the shaft, no trace is found. 
As from the wing, no scar the sky retains ; 
Tlie parted wave no furrow from the keel ; 
So dies in human hearts the thoughts of death, 
Ev'n with the tender tear which nature sheds 
O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave. 



LIFE AND DEATH. 

Life makes the soul dependent on the dust ; 
Death gives her wings to mount above the spheres. 
Through chinks, stj^l'd organs, dim life peeps at hght; 
Death bursts th' involving cloud, and all is day ; 
All eye, all ear, the disembody'd power. 
Death has feign'd evils, nature shall not feel; 
Life, ills substantial, wisdom cannot shun. 
Is not the mighty inind, that son of heaven ! 
By tyrant life dethron'd, imprison'd, pain'd? 
By death enlarg'd, ennobled, deify'd? 
Death btit entombs the body; life the soul. 






1760-1820.] YOUNG. 509 



DYING RICH. 

Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour 1 
What though we wade in wealth, or soar in fame ? 
Earth's highest station ends in "Here he lies," 
And " dust to dust" concludes her noblest song. 
If this song lives, posterity shall know 
One, though in Britain born, with courtiers bred. 
Who thought ev'n gold might come a day too late ; 
Nor on his subtle death-bed plann'd his scheme 
For future vacancies in church or state ; 
Some avocation deeming it — to die, 
Unbit by rage canine of dying rich ; 
Guilt's blunder ! and the loudest laugh of hell ! 



SOCIETY NECESSARY FOR HAPPINESS. 

Wisdom, though richer than Peruvian mines, 
And sweeter than the sweet ambrosial hive, 
What is she, but the means of Happiness ? 
That unobtain'd, than folly more a fool; 
A melancholy fool, without her bells. 
Friendship, the means of wisdom, richly gives 
The precious end, which makes our wisdom wise. 
Nature, in zeal for human amity, 
Denies, or damps, an undivided joy ; 
Joy is an import ; joy is an exchange ; 
Joy flies monopolists : it calls for Two ; 
Rich fruit ! heaven-planted ! never pluck'd by One. 
Needful auxiliars are our friends, to give 
To social man true relish of himself. 
Full on ourselves, descending in a line. 
Pleasure's bright beam is feeble in delight : 
DeUght intense is taken by rebound ; 
Reverberated pleasures fire the breast. 



INSUFFICIENCY OF GENIUS AND STATION WITHOUT VIRTUE. 

Genius and art, ambition's boasted wings. 
Our boast but ill deserve. A feeble aid ! 
Dedalian enginery ! If these alone 
Assist our flight, fame's flight is glory's fall. 
Heart-merit wanting, mount we ne'er so high. 
Our height is but the gibbet of our name. 
A celebrated \vretch, when I behold ; 
When I behold a genius bright, and base, 
Of towering talents, and terrestrial aims ; 
Methinks I see, as thrown from her high sphere. 
The glorious fragments of a soul immortal, 
With rubbish mix'd, and glittering in the dust. 



510 YOUNG. [OEORGE III. 

Struck at the splendid, melancholy sight, 
At once compassion soft, and en\y, rise — 
But wherefore en\y'? Talents angel-bright, 
If wanting worth, are shining instruments 
In false ambition's hand, to finish faults 
Illustrious, and give infamy renown. 

Great ill is an achievement of great powers. 
Plain sense but rarely leads us far astray. 
Reason the means, affections choose our end; 
Means have no merit, if our end amiss. 
If wrong our hearts, our heads are right in vain ; 
Hearts are proprietors of all applause. 
Right ends, and means, make wisdom : Worldly-wise 
Is but half-witted, at its highest praise. 
Let genius then despair to make thee great ; 
Nor flatter station : What is station high ? 
'Tis a proud mendicant; it Ix)asts, and begs; 
It begs an alms of homage from the throng, 
And oft the throng denies its charity. 
Monarchs and ministers are awful names ; 
Whoever wear them, challenge our devoir. 
Religion, public order, both exact 
External homage, and a supple knee. 
To beings pompously set up, to serve 
The meanest slave ; all more is merit's due, 
Her sacred and inviolable right 
Nor ever paid the monarch, but the man. 
Our hearts ne'er bow but to superior worth; 
Nor ever fail of their allegiance there. 
Fools, indeed, drop the man in their accoimt, 
And vote the mantle into majesty. 
Let the small savage lx)ast his silver fur; 
His royal robe unborrow'd and unbought, 
His own, descending fairly from his sires. 
Shall man be proud to wear his livery. 
And souls in ermine scorn a soul without 1 
Can place or lessen us, or aggrandize? 
Pygmies are pygmies still, though perch'd on Alps; 
And pyramids are pyramids in vales. 
Each man makes his own stature, builds himself: 
Virtue alone outbuilds the pyramids: 
Her monuments shall last, when Egypt's fall. 
Of these sure truths dost thou demand the cause? 
The cause is lodg'd in immortality. 
Hear, and assent. Thy bosom burns for power ; 
What station charms thee ? I'll install thee there ; 
'Tis thine. And art thou greater than before 1 
Then thou before wast something less than man. 
Has thy new post betray'd thee into pride ? 
That treach'rous pride betrays thy dignity ; 
That pride defames humanity, and calls 
The being mean, which staffs or strings can raise 



1760-1820.] YOUNG. 511 

High worth is elevated place : 'Tis more ; 
It makes the post stand candidate for Thee ; 
Makes more than monarchs, makes an honest man 5 
Though no exchequer it commands, 'tis ^vealth ; 
And though it wears no ribband, "tis renown ; 
Renown, that would not quit thee, though disgraced, 
Nor leave thee pendant on a master's smile. 
Other ambition nature interdicts ; 
Natm-e proclaims it most absurd in man, 
By pointing at his origin, and end ; 
Milk, and a swathe, at first, his whole demand; 
His whole domain, at last, a turf, or stone ; 
To whom, between, a world may seem too small. 

THE LOVE OF PRAISE.* 

What will not men attempt for sacred praise ? 
The Love of Praise, howe"er conceaUd by art. 
Reigns, more or less, and glows, in every heart: 
The proud, to gain it, toils on toils endure ; 
The modest shun it but to make it sure. 
O'er globes and sceptres, noM^ on thrones it swells j 
Now, trims the midnight lamp in college cells : 
'Tis Tory, Whig ; it plots, prays, preaches, pleads. 
Harangues in Senates, squeaks in Masquerades. 
Here, to Steele's humor makes a bold pretence; 
There, bolder, aims at Pulteney's eloquence. 
It aids the dancer's heel, the writer's head. 
And heaps the plain with mountains of the dead; 
Nor ends with life ; but nods in sable plumes, 
Adorns our hearse, and flatters on our tombs. 



THE WEDDED WIT.^ 

Naught but a genius can a genius fit ; 

A wit herself, Ameha weds a wit : 

Both wits ! though nniracles are said to cease. 

Three days, three \vondrous days ! they liv'd in peace ; 

With the fourth sun a warm dispute arose. 

On Durfey's poesy, and Bunyan's prose : 

The learned war both wage with equal force, 

And the fifth morn concluded the divorce. 



THE LANGUID LADY. 

The languid lady next appears in state, 
Who was not born to carry her own weight ; 
She lolls, reels, staggers, till some foreign aid 
To her own stature lifts the feeble maid. 



Satire I. . 2 Satire V. 



512 FALCONER. [gEORGE III 

Then, if ordain'd to so severe a doom, 
She, by just stages, journeys round the room : 
But, knowing her own weakness, she despairs 
To scale the Alps — that is, ascend the stairs. 
My fan ! let others say, who laugh at toil ; 
Fan! hood! glove! scarf! is her laconic style; 
And that is spoke with such a dying fall. 
That Betty rather sees, than hears the call : 
The motion of her lips, and meaning eye, 
Piece out th' idea her faint words deny. 
O listen with attention most profound! 
Her voice is but the shadow of a sound. 
And help ! oh help ! her spirits are so dead, 
One hand scarce lifts the other to her head. 
If, there, a stubborn pin it triumphs o'er. 
She pants! she sinks away! and is no more. 
Let the robust and the gigantic carve, 
Life is not worth so much, she'd ratlier starve: 
But chew she must herself; ah, cruel fate! 
That Rosalinda cant by proxy eat. 



WILLIAM FALCONER, 1730—1769. 

William Falconer was the son of a barber in Edinburgh, and was born 
in the year 1730. He had very few advantages of education, and in early 
life went to sea in the merchant service. He was afterwards mate of a 
vessel that was wrecked in the Levant, and was one of three only, out of the 
crew, that were saved; a catastrophe which formed the subject of his future 
poem, "The Shipwreck," which he published in 1762, and on which his 
chief claim to merit rests. Early in 1769 his " Marine Dictionary" appeared, 
which has been spoken highly of by those who are capable of estimating its 
merits. In the latter part of the same year he embarked in the Aurora, for 
India, but the vessel was never heard of after she passed the Cape, " so that 
the poet of the Shipwreck may be supposed to have perished by the same 
species of calamity which he had rehearsed."' 

The subject of the Shipwreck and the fate of its author, bespeak an un- 
common partiality in its favor. If we pay respect to the ingenious scholar, 
who can produce agreeable verses amidst the shades of retirement, or the 
shelves of his library, how much more interest must we take in the " ship- 
boy on the high and giddy mast," cherishing refined visions of fancy at the 
hour which he may casually snatch from fatigue and danger? His poem has 
the sensible charm of appearing a transcript of reahty, and from its vividness 
and power of description, powerfully interests the feelings, and leaves a deep 
impression of truth and nature on the mind. 

' Campbell's Specimens, vol. vi. p. 9S. 



1760-1820.] FALCONER. 513 



THE VESSEL GOING TO PIECES. DEATH OF ALBERT, THE COM- 
MANDER. 

With mournful look the seamen ey'd the strand, 
Where death's inexorable jaws expand: 
Swift from their minds elaps'd all dangers past, 
As, dmnb with terror, they beheld the last. 
Now on the trembling shrouds, before, behind. 
In mute suspense they mount into the wind. — 
The Genius of the deep, on rapid wing, 
The black eventful moment seem'd to bring. 
The fatal Sisters, on the surge before, 
Yok'd their infernal horses to the prore. — 
The steersmen now receiv'd their last command 
To wheel the vessel sidelong to the strand. 
Twelve sailors, on the foremast who depend, 
High on the platform of the top ascend ; 
Fatal retreat ! for while the plunging prow 
Immerges headlong in the wave below, 
Down-prest by w&t'ry weight the bowsprit bends, 
And from above the stem deep crashing rends. 
Beneath her beak the floating ruins lie ; 
The foremast totters, unsustain'd on high : 
And now the ship, fore-lifted by the sea, 
Hurls the tall fabric backward o'er her lee; 
While, in the general wreck, the faithful stay 
Drags the main-topmast from its post away. 
Flung from the mast, the seamen strive in vain 
Through hostile floods their vessel to regain. 
The waves they buffet, till, bereft of strength, 
O'erpower'd they yield to cruel fate at length. 
The hostile waters close around their head. 
They sink for ever, number'd with the dead! 

Those who remain their fearful doom await, 
Nor longer mourn their lost companions' fate. 
The heart that bleeds with sorrows all its own, 
Forgets the pangs of friendship to bemoan.— 
Albert and Rodmond and Palemon here, 
With young Arion, on the mast appear; 
Even they, amid th' unspeakable distress. 
In every look distracting thoughts confess ; 
In every vein the refluent blood congeals, 
And every bosom fatal terror feels. 
Inclos'd with all the demons of the main, 
They view'd th' adjacent shore, but viewM in vain. 
Such torments in the drear abodes of hell. 
Where sad despair laments with rueful yell. 
Such torments agonize the damned breast. 
While fancy views the mansions of the blest. 
For heaven's sweet help their suppliant cries implore; 
But heaven, relentless, deigns to help no more ! 
33 



514 FALCONER. [gEORGE IH. 

And now, lash'd on by destiny severe, 
With horror fraught, the dreadful scene drew near ! 
The ship hangs hovering on the verge of death, 
Hell yawns, rocks rise, and breakers roar beneath ! — 
In vain, alas ! the sacred shades of yore 
Would arm the mind with philosophic lore ; 
In vain they'd teach us, at the latest breath. 
To smile serene amid the pangs of death. 
E'en Zeno's self, and Epictetus old, 
This fell abyss had shudder'd to behold. 
Had Socrates, for god-like virtue fam'd, 
And wisest of the sons of men proclaim'd, 
Beheld this scene of frenzy and distress, 
His soul had trembled to its last recess ! — 
O yet confirm my heart, ye powers above, 
This last tremendous shock of fate to prove. 
The tottering frame of reason yet sustain ! 
Nor let this total ruin whirl my brain ! 

In vam the cords and axes were prepar'd, 
For now th' audacious seas insult the yard ; 
High o'er the ship they throw a horrid shade, 
And o'er her burst, in terrible cascade. 
Uplifted on the surge, to heaven she flies, 
Her shatter 'd top half buried in the skies. 
Then headlong plunging, thunders on the ground, 
Earth groans ! air trembles ! aixd the deeps resound ! 
Her giant bulk the dread concussion feels, 
And quivering with the wound, in torment, reels ; 
So reels, convuls'd with agonising throes, 
The bleeding bull beneath the murd"rer's blows. — 
Again she plunges ! hark ! a second shock 
Tears her strong bottom on the marble rock ! 
Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries, 
The fated victims shuddering roll their eyes 
In wild despair ; "wiiile yet another stroke, 
With deep convulsion, rends the sohd oak; 
Till like the mine, in whose infernal cell 
The lurking demons of destruction dwell, 
At length asunder torn, her frame divides. 
And crashing spreads in ruin o'er the tides. 

As o'er the surge the stooping main-mast hungj 
Still on the rigging thirty seamen clung : 
Some, struggling, on a broken crag were cast, 
And there by oozy tangles grappled fast ; 
Awhile they bore th' o'erwhelming billows' rage, 
Unequal combat with their fate to wage ; 
Till all benumb'd and feeble they forego 
Their slippery hold, and sink to shades below. 
Some, from the main-yardarm impetuous thrown 
On marble ridges, die without a groan. 
Three with Palemon on their skill depend, 
And from the wreck on oars and rafts descend. 



1760-1820.] AKENSIDE. 515 

Now on the mountain-wave on high they ride, 
Then downward plunge beneath th' involving tide : 
Till one, who seems in agony to strive. 
The whirling breakers heave on. shore alive 5 
The rest a speedier end of anguish knew, 
And prest the stony beach, a lifeless crew ! 
Next, unhappy chief! th' eternal doom 
Of heaven decreed thee to the briny tomb ! 
What scenes of misery torment thy view ! 
What painful struggles of thy dying crew! 
Thy perish'd hopes all buried in the flood, 
O'erspread with corses! red with human blood I 
So piere'd with anguish hoary Priam gaz'd, 
When Troy's imperial domes in ruin blaz'd; 
While he, severest sorrow doom'd to feel, 
Expir'd beneath the victor's murdering steeL 
Thus with his helpless partners till the last, 
Sad refuge ! Albert hugs the floating mast : 
His soul could yet sustain the mortal blow. 
But droops, alas! beneath superior woe: 
For now soft nature's sympathetic chain 
Tugs at his yearning heart with powerful straui; 
His faithful wife for ever doom'd to mourn 
For him, alas! who never shall return: 
To black adversity's approach expos'd, 
With want and hardships unforeseen enclos'd: 
His lovely daughter left without a friend, 
Her innocence to succor and defend; 
By youth and indigence set forth a prey 
To lawless guilt, that flatters to betray — 
While these reflections rack his feeling mind, 
Eodmond, who hung beside, his grasp resigu'd; 
And, as the tumbling waters o'er him roU'd, 
His out-stretch'd arms the master's legs enfold. — 
Sad Albert feels the dissolution near ^ 

And strives in vain his fetter 'd limbs to clear ; > 
For death bids every clinching joint adhere. ) 
All-faint, to heaven he throws his dying eyes, 
And, "0 protect my wife and child !" he cries : 
The gushing streams roll back th' unfinish'd sound! 
He gasps! he dies! and tumbles to the ground! 



MARK AKENSIDE, 1721—1770. 

Few English poets of the eighteenth century are to be ranked before the 
author of the " Pleasures of the Imagination." He was born on the 9th of 
November, 1721, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and was educated at the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh. His parents designed him for the ministry, but as his 
education progressed, other views governed him. and he devoted himself to 



516 AKENSIDE. [gEORGE HI. 

the study of medicine as his future profession. After remaining three years 
at the Scottish capital, he went to Leyden, where he also studied three 
years, and took his degree of M. D. in 1744. Returning home the same 
year, he pubhshed his poem, "The Pleasures of the Imagination." Or 
offering the copy to Dodsley, he demanded £120 for the manuscript, but the 
wary publisher hesitated at paying such a price for the work of an unknown 
youth of twenty-three. He therefore showed the work to Pope, when the 
latter, having glanced over a few pages, said, " Don't be niggardly about the 
terms, for this is no every -day writer." 

No sooner was it published than it excited great attention, and received 
general applause. But he could not reap from it "the means whereby to 
live," and he betook himself to the practice of his profession. He first settled 
in Northampton ; but finding little encouragement there, he removed to 
Hampstead, and thence finally to London. Here he experienced the diffi- 
culty of getting into notice in a large city, and though he acquiretl several 
professional honors, he never obtained any large share of practice. He was 
busy in presenting himself to public notice, by publishing medical essays and 
observations, and delivering lectures, when his career was terminated by a 
putrid fever, on the 23d of January, 1770. 

The Pleasures of the Imagination is written in blank verse, with great 
beauty of versification, elegance of language, and splendor of imagery. Its 
object is to trace the various pleasures which we receive from nature and art 
to their respective principles in the human imagination, and to show the con- 
nection of those principles with the moral dignity of man, and the final pur- 
poses of his creation.^ This task Akenside has executed in a most admirable 
manner. If his philosophy be not always correct, his general ideas of moral 
truth are lofty and prepossessing. He is peculiarly eloquent in those pas- 
sages in which he describes the final causes of our emotions of taste ; he is 
equally skilful in delineating the processes of memory and association ; and 
he gives an animating view of Genius collecting her stores for works of ex- 
cellence. Of this poem Dr. Johnson remarks, " It has undoubtedly a just 
claim to a very particular notice, as an example of great felicity of genius, 
and uncommon amplitude of acquisitions, of a young mind stored with 
images, and much exercised in combining and comparing them. The sub- 
ject is well chosen, as it includes all images that can strike or please, and 
thus comprises every species of poetical delight." He complains, however, 
with equal justice, of the poet's amplitude of language, in which his meaning 
is frequently obscured, and sometimes wholly buried. 

In maturer life Akenside intended to revise and alter the whole poem, but 
he died before he had completed his design. The portion that he did "im- 
prove" is contracted in some parts and expanded in others; but if it be more 
philosophically correct, it is shorn of much of its beauty and poetic fire; and 
the original inspiration, under which he had written the work, does not ap- 
pear to have been ready at his call.^ 

* Campbell's Specimens, vol. vi. p. 128. 

^ Read Mrs. Barbauld's elegant Essay, prefixed to an edition of his poem> 
published in 1796 ; in which she characterizes his genius as lofty and elegant, 
chaste, classicalj and correct. 



1760-1820.] AKENSIDE. 517 



INTRODUCTION. THE SUBJECT PROPOSED. 

With what attractive charms this goodly frame 
Of nature touches the corisenting hearts 
Of mortal men; and what the pleasing stores 
Which beauteous imitation thence derives 
To deck the poet's or the painter's toil ; 
My verse unfolds. Attend, ye gentle powers 
Of musical delight! and while I sing 
Your gifts, your honors, dance around my strain. 
Thou, smiling queen of every tuneful breast. 
Indulgent Fancy ! from the fruitful banks 
Of Avon, whence thy rosy fingers cull 
Fresh flowers and dews to sprinkle on the turf 
Where Shakspeare lies, be present; and with thee 
Let Fiction come, upon her vagrant wings, 
Wafting ten thousand colors through the air, 
Which, by the glances of her magic eye, 
She blends and shifts at will, through countless forms, 
Her wild creation. Goddess of the lyre. 
Which rules the accents of the moving sphere, 
Wilt thou, eternal Harmony ! descend, 
And join this festive train? for with thee comes 
The guide, tlie guardian of their lovely sports, 
Majestic Truth; and where Truth deigns to come, 
Her sister Liberty will not be far. 
Be present, all ye genii, who conduct 
The wandering footsteps of the youthful bard, 
New to your springs and shades : who touch his ear 
With finer sounds : who heighten to his eye 
The bloom of nature ; and before him turn 
The gayest, happiest attitude of things. 

Oft have the laws of each poetic strain 
The critic-verse employ'd; yet. still unsung 
Lay this prime subject, though importing most 
A poet's name : for fruitless is th' attempt, 
By dull obedience and by creeping toil. 
Obscure, to conquer the severe ascent 
Of high Parnassus. Nature's kindling breath 
Must fire the chosen genius ; nature's hand 
Must string his nerves, and imp his eagle-wings, 
Impatient of the painful steep, to soar 
High as the summit ; there to breathe at large 
Ethereal air ; with bards and sages old, 
Immortal sons of praise. These flattering scenes, 
To this neglected labor court my song; 
Yet not unconscious what a doubtful task 
To paint the finest features of the mind, 
And to most subtle and mysterious things 
Give color, strength, and motion. But the love 
Of nature and the muses bids explore. 



51 B AKENSIDE. [gEORGE III. 

Through secret paths erewhile untrod by man, 
The fair poetic region, to detect 
Untasted springs, to drink inspiring draughts. 
And shade my temples with unfading flowers 
Cull'd from the laureate vale's profound recess, 
Where never poet gain'd a wreath before. 

But not alike to every mortal eye 
Is this great scene unveil'd. For since the clainss 
Of social life, to different labors urge 
The active powers of man; with wise intent 
The hand of nature on peculiar minds 
Imprints a different bias, and to each 
Decrees its province in the common toil. 
To some she taught the fabric of the sphere, 
The changeful moon, the circuit of the stars, 
The golden zones of heaven; to some she gave 
To weigh the moment of eternal things, 
Of time, and space, and fate's unbroken chain, 
And will's quick impulse: others by the hand 
She led o'er vales and mountains, to explore 
What healing virtue swells the tender veins 
Of herbs and flowers ; or what the beams of mom 
Draw forth, distilling from the clefted rind 
In balmy tears. But some to higher hopes 
Were destined ; some within a finer mould 
She wrought, and temper'd with a purer flame. 
To these the Sire Omnipotent unfolds 
The world's harmonious volume, there to read 
The transcript of himself On every part 
They trace the bright impressions of his hand: 
In earth or air, the meadow's purple stores, 
The moon's mild radiance, or the virgin's form 
Blooming with rosy smiles, they see portray'd 
That uncreated beauty, which delights 
The mind supreme. They also feel her charmg, 
Enamor'd ; they partake th' eternal joy. 



man's immortal aspirations. 

Say, why was man so eminently raised 
Amid the vast creation ; why ordain'd 
Through life and death to dart his piercing eye, 
With thoughts beyond the limit of his frame ; 
But that th' Omnipotent might send him forth 
In sight of mortal and immortal powers, 
As 0X1 a boundless theatre, to run 
riie great career of justice ; to exalt 
His generous aim to all diviner deeds ; 
To chase each partial purpose from his breast, 
And through the mists of passion and of sense. 
And through the tossing tide of chance and pain, 



1760-1820.] AKENSIDE. 519 

To hold his course unfaltering, while the voice 

Of truth and virtue, up the steep ascent 

Of nature, calls him to his high reward, 

Th' applauding smile of heaven? Else wherefore burns 

In mortal bosoms this unquenched hope, 

That breathes from day to day sublimer things, 

And mocks possession? wherefore darts the mind, 

With such resistless ardor, to embrace 

Majestic forms ; impatient to be free ; 

Spurning the gross control of wilful might; 

Proud of the strong contention of her toils; 

Proud to be daring ? Who but rather turns 

To heaven's broad fire his unconstrained view, 

Than to the glimmering of a waxen flame 1 

Who that, from Alpine heights, his laboring eye 

Shoots round the wild horizon, to survey 

Nilus or Ganges rolling his bright wave 

Through mountains, plains, through empires black with shade, 

And continents of sand; will turn his gaze 

To mark the windings of a scanty rill 

That murmurs at his feet? The high-born soul 

Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing 

Beneath its native quarry. Tired of earth 

And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft 

Through fields of air; pursues the flying storm; 

Rides on the voUey'd lightning through the heavens ; 

Or, yoked with whirlwinds, and the northern blast, 

Sweeps the long tract of day. Then high she soars 

The blue profound, and hovering round the sun, 

Beholds him pouring the redundant stream 

Of light ; beholds his unrelenting sway 

Bend the reluctant planets to absolve 

The fated rounds of time. Thence far efiused. 

She darts her swiftness up the long career 

Of devious comets; through its burning signs 

Exulting measures the perennial wheel 

Of nature, and looks back on all the stars. 

Whose blended light, as with a milky zone, 

Invests the orient. Now amazed she views 

Th' empyreal waste, where happy spirits hold. 

Beyond this concave heaven, their calm abode ; 

And fields of radiance, whose unfading light 

Has traveird the profound six thousand years, 

Nor yet arrives in sight of mortal things. 

E'en on the barriers of the world untired 

She meditates th' eternal depth below ; 

Till, half recoiling, down the headlong steep 

She plunges ; soon o'erwhelm'd and swallow'd up 

In that immense of being. There her hopes 

Rest at the fated goal. For from the birth 

Of mortal man, the sovereign Maker said. 

That not in humble nor in brief delight, 



520 AKENSIDE. [gEORGE III. 

Not in the fading echoes of renown, 

Power's purple robes, nor pleasure's flowery lap^ 

The soul should find enjoyment : but from these 

Turning disdainful to an equal good, 

Through all th' ascent of things enlarge her view, 

Till every bound at length should disappear, 

And infinite perfection close the scene. 



CAUSE OF OUR PLEASURE IN BEAUTY. 

Then tell me, for ye knoWj 
Does beauty ever deign to dwell where health 
And active use are strangers ? Is her charm 
Confess'd in aught, whose most peculiar ends 
Are lame and fruitless 1 Or did nature meaa 
This pleasing call the herald of a lie ; 
To hide the shame of discord and disease, 
And catch with fair hypocrisy the heart 
Of idle faith ? O no : with better cares 
Th' indulgent mother, conscious how infirm 
Her ofispring tread the paths of good and ill, 
By this illustrious image, in each kind 
Still most illustrious where the object holds 
Its native powers most perfect, she by this 
Illumes the headstrong impulse of desire, 
And sanctifies his choice. The generous glebe. 
Whose bosom smiles with verdure, the clear tract 
Of streams, delicious to the thirsty soul. 
The bloom of nectar'd fruitage ripe to sense. 
And every charm of animated things, 
Are only pledges of a state sincere, 
Th' integrity and order of their frame, 
When all is well within, and every end 
Accomplish'd. Thus was beauty sent from heaven, 
The lovely ministress of truth and good 
In this dark world : for truth and good are one, 
And beauty dwells in them, and they in her, 
With like participation. Wherefore, then, 
sons of earth ! would ye dissolve the tie ? 
O wherefore, with a rash, impetuous aim, 
Seek ye those fiowery joys with which the hand 
Of lavish fancy paints each flattering scene 
Where beauty seems to dwell, nor once inquire 
Where is the sanction of eternal truth. 
Or where the seal of undeceitful good. 
To save your search from folly ! Wanting these, 
Lo! beauty withers in your void embrace, 
And with the glittering of an idiot's toy 
Did fancy mock your vows. 



1760-1820.] AKENSIDE. 521 



THE SUPERIORITY OF MORAL OVER NATURAL BEAUTY.l 

Thus doth beauty dwell 
There most conspicuous, e'en in outward shape, 
Where dawns the high expression of a mind: 
By steps conducting- our enraptured search 
To that eternal origin, whose power. 
Through all th' unbounded symmetry of things, 
Like rays efFulging from the parent sun, 
This endless mixture of her charms diffused. 
Mind, mind alone, (bear witness, earth and heaven!) 
The living fountains in itself contains 
Of beauteous and sublime: here, hand in hand, 
Sit paramount the graces ; here enthroned. 
Celestial Venus, with divinest airs, 
Invites the soul to never-fading joy. 
Look then abroad through nature, to the range 
Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres. 
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense; 
And speak, O man! does this capacious scene 
With half that kindling majesty dilate 
The strong conception, as when Brutus rose 
Refulgent from the stroke of Caesar's fate. 
Amid the crowd of patriots ; and his arm 
Aloft extending, like eternal Jove, 
When guilt brings down the thunder, call'd aloud 
On TuUy's name, and shook his crimson steel, 
And bade the fatlaer of his country hail? 
For lo ! the tyrant prostrate on the dust, 
And Rome again is free ! 



TASTE. 

What then is taste, but these internal powers 
Active, and strong, and feelingly alive 
To each fine impulse ? a discerning sense 
Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust 
From things deform'd, or disarranged, or gross 
In species ? This, nor gems, nor stores of gold. 
Nor purple state, nor culture can bestow ; 
But God alone when first his active hand 

* Our poet is exceedingly infelicitous in giving, as an illustration of this fine 
subject, the historical fact of the assassination of Julius Caesar by Brutus and 
the rest of the conspirators. In a moral point of view it was an atrocious 
murder, utterly unjustifiable : and in a political point of view it was highly 
inexpedient. For however unscrupulous Caesar was in his means to attain 
power; when obtained, few men have used it with more wisdom or clemency. 
In every great quality how superior was he to the hollow-hearted, selfish 
Augustus. The former, for instance, spared Cicero, his enemy, and the main 
stay of the party of Pompey; the latter sacrificed him, though professedly a 
friend, to the vengeance of Antony. 



522 AKENSIDE. [OEORGE III. 

Imprints the secret bias of the soul. 

He, mighty Parent! wise and just in all, 

Free as the vital breeze or light of heaven, 

Reveals the charms of nature. Ask the swain 

Who journeys homeward from a summer day's 

Long labor, why, forgetful of his toils 

And due repose, he loiters to behold 

The sunshine gleaming as through amber clouds, 

O'er all the western sky ; full soon, I ween, 

His rude expression and untutor'd airs, 

Beyond the power of language, will unfold 

The fonn of beauty smiling at his heart, Jl 

How lovely! how commanding! But though Heaven ^| 

In every breast hath sown these early seeds 

Of love and admiratiom, yet in vain. 

Without fair culture's kind parental aid, 

Without enlivening suns, and genial showers, 

And shelter from the blast, in vain we hope 

The tender plant should rear its blooming head, 

Or yield the harvest promised in its spring. 

Nor yet will every soil with equal stores 

Repay the tiller's labor ; or attend 

His will, obsequious, whether to produce 

The olive or the laurel. Ditferent minds 

Incline to different objects : one pursues 

The vast alone, the wonderful, the wild; 

Another sighs for harmony and grace. 

And gentlest beauty. Hence, when lightning fires 

The arch of heaven, and thunders rock the ground, 

When furious whirlwinds rend the howling air, 

And ocean, groaning from his lowest bed, 

Heaves his tempestuous billows to the sky ; 

Amid the mighty uproar, while below 

The nations tremble, Shakspeare looks abroad 

From some high cliif, superior, and enjoys 

The elemental war. But Waller longs. 

All on the margin of some flowery stream. 

To spread his careless limbs amid the cool 

Of plantain shades, and to the listening deer 

The tale of slighted vows and love's disdain 

Resound soft-warbling all tlie live-long day : 

Consenting zephyr sighs ; the weeping rill 

Joins in his plaint, melodious; mute the groves; 

And hill and dale with all their echoes mourn. 

Such and so various are the tastes of men. 



CONCLUSION. 

! blest of Heaven, whom not the languid songs 
Of luxury, the siren ! not the bribes 
Of sordid wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils 
Of pageant honor, can seduce to leave 



1760-1820.] AKENsiDE. 523 

Those ever-blooming sweets, which, from the store 

Of nature, fair imagination culls 

To charm th' enliven 'd soul ! What though not all 

Of mortal offspring can attain the heights 

Of envied life ; though only few possess 

Patrician treasures or imperial state ; 

Yet nature's care, to ali her children just, 

With richer treasures and an ampler state, 

Endows, at large, whatever happy man 

Will deign to use them. His the city's pomp, 

The rural honors his. Whate'er adorns 

The princely dome, the column and the arch, 

The breathing marbles and the sculptured gold. 

Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim, 

His tuneful breast enjoys. For him, the Spring 

Distils her dews, and from the silken gem 

Its lucid leaves unfolds : for him, the hand 

Of Autumn tinges every fertile branch 

With blooming gold, and blushes like the morn. 

Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings ; 

And still new beauties meet his lonely walk, 

And loves unfelt attract him. Not a breeze 

FUes o'er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes 

The setting sun's efililgence, not a strain 

From all the tenants of the warbling shade 

Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake 

Fresh pleasure unreproved. Nor thence partakes 

Fresh pleasure only: for th' attentive mind, 

By this harmonious action on her powers. 

Becomes herself harmonious : wont so oft 

In outward things to meditate the charm 

Of sacred order, soon she seeks at home 

To find a kindred order to exert 

Within herself this elegance of love, 

This fair inspired delight : her temper'd powers 

Refine at length, and every passion wears 

A chaster, milder, more attractive mien. 

But if to ampler prospects, if to gaze 

On nature's form, where, negligent of all 

These lesser graces, she assumes the port 

Of that eternal majesty that weigh'd 

The world's foundations, if to these the mind 

Exalts her daring eye ; then mightier far 

Will be the change, and nobler. Would the forms 

Of servile custom cramp her generous powers'? 

Would sordid policies, the barbarous growth 

Of ignorance and rapine, bow her down 

To tame pursuits, to indolence and fear ? 

Lo ! she appeals to nature, to the winds 

And rolling waves, the sun's unwearied course, 

The elements and seasons: all declare 

For what th' eternal Maker has ordain'd 



524 GRAY. [^GEORGE III. 

The powers of man : we feel within ourselves 

His energy divine : he tells the heart, 

He meant he made us to behold and love 

What he beholds and loves, the general orb 

Of life and being ; to be great like liira, 

Beneficent and active. Thus the men 

Whom nature's works can charm, with God himself 

Hold converse ; grow familiar, day by day. 

With his conceptions, act upon his plan ; 

And form to his the relish of their souls. 



THOMAS GRAY, 1716—1771. 

This most eminent poet and distinguished scholar was born in London in 
1716. After receiving the first portion of his classical education at Eton, he 
entered the University of Cambridge, where he continued five years, after 
which he travelled, as companion with Horace Walpole, through France 
and part of Italy. At Reggio, however, these ill-assorted friends parted in 
mutual dislike, and Gray proceeded alone to Venice, and there remained 
only till he was provided with the means of returning to England. As to 
the cause of the separation Walpole was afterwards content to bear the 
blame. "Gray," said he, "was too serious a companion for me: he was 
for antiquities, &c., while I was for perpetual balls and plays : the fault was 
mine." 

Two months after his return to England, his father died in embarrassed 
circumstances, and Gray returned to Cambridge, where he prosecuted his 
studies with an ardor and industry seldom equalled, to the end of his life. 
In 1742 he produced his " Ode to Spring," and in the autumn of the same 
year he wrote the " Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College," and the 
" Hymn to Adversity ;" but he did not pubUsh them till some years^after. 
They were circulated among his friends, who were, of course, delighted with 
them, and they received from their gifted author touches and re-touches, till 
they were brought to the perfection in which we now have them. So slow 
was he in poetical composition, that his next " Ode on the Death of a 
favorite Cat," was not written till 1747. In 1750 appeared his most cele- 
brated poem, the " Elegy written in a Country Churchyard." Few poems 
were ever so popular. It soon ran through eleven editions, and has ever 
since been one of those few, favorite pieces that every one has by heart. 

In 1757 the office of poet laureate, made vacant by the death of Cibber, 
was offered to Gray, but declined. The same year he published his two odes 
on "The Progress of Poesy," and "The Bard." Though they showed 
to a still higher degree the power and the genius of the poet, and were felt 
to be magnificent productions, they were not so popular, because they were 
less understood.* In 1768, the Professorship of History at Cambridge be- 

1 He himself prefixed to them a quotation from Pindar, <imctf'TA a-vv^otirn, 
*' vocal to the intelligent alone." 



1760-1820.] GRAY. 525 

coming vacant, it was conferred upon our poet, than whom a person of greater 
and more extensive scholarship could not be found at that time in England. 
But his habitual indolence in writing unfitted him for the office ; for though 
he retained it till his death, he delivered no lectures. In the spring of 1770 
illness overtook him, as he was projecting a tour in Wales ; but recovering, 
he was able to effect the tour in the autumn. But the next year, 1771, on 
the 24th of July, he was seized with an attack of gout in the stomach, from 
which, as an hereditary complaint, he had long suffered ; and died on the 30th 
of the same month, in the fifty -fifth year of his age. 

The Ufe of Gray is one singularly devoid of interest and variety, even for 
an author. It is the life of a student giving himself up to learning, account- 
ing it as an end itself, and " its own exceeding great reward." He devoted 
his time almost exclusively to reading : writing was with him an exception, 
and that, too, a rare one. His life was spent in the acquisition of knowledge. 
At the time of his death, " he was perhaps the most learned man in Europe. 
He was equally acquainted with the elegant and profound parts of science, 
and that not superficially but thoroughly. He knew every branch of history, 
both natural and civil ; had read all the original historians of England, France, 
and Italy ; and was a great antiquarian. Criticism, metaphysics, morals, 
politics, made a principal part of his plan of study ; voyages and travels of 
all sorts were his favorite amusement : and he had a fine taste in painting, 
prints, architecture, and gardening."^ 

As a poet, though we cannot assent to the enthusiastic encomium of his 
ardent admirer and biographer, Mr. Matthias,^ that he is " second to none," 
yet, after naming Milton, and Shakspeare, and Spenser, and Chaucer, if we 
were compelled to assign the fifth place to some one, we know not to whom it 
would be, if not to Thomas Gray. There are in the poems that he has left 
us, few though they be, such a perfect finish of language, such felicity of 
expression, such richness and harmony of numbers, and such beauty and 
sublimity of thought and imagination, as to place him decidedly at the head 
of all English lyric poets. True, Collins comes next, and sometimes ap- 
proaches him almost within a hair's-breadth : but after all there is distance 
between them, and that distance is generally clearly perceptible. Of the 
"Bard" and " The Progress of Poesy," Mr. Matthias justly observes, "there 
is not another ode in the English language which is constructed like these 
two compositions ; with such power, such majesty, and such sweetness, with 
such proportioned pauses and just cadences, with such regulated measures 
of the verse, with such master principles of lyrical art displayed and exem- 
plified, and, at the same time, with such a concealment of the difficulty, 
which is lost in the softness and uninterrupted flowing of the lines in each 

'■ From a sketch of his life by the Rev. Wm. Temple. '* I am sorry," says 
the excellent Dr. Beattie, in writing to a friend, "you did not see Mr. Gray 
on his return : you would have been much pleased with him. Setting aside 
his merit as a poet, which, however, in my opinion, is greater than any of his 
cotemporaries can boast, in this or any other nation, I found him possessed oT 
the most exact taste, the soundest judgment, and most extensive learning." 

2 Works, by T. J. Matthias, 2 vols, quarto : the best edition. 



526 GRAY. [gEORGE III. 

stanza, with such a musical magic, that every verse in it in succession dwells 
on the ear, and harmonizes with that which has gone before." 

As a man, he had great benevolence of feeling, the strictest principles of 
virtue, and the most unbending integrity. As an instance of the strictness 
of his principles, he once made it his particular request to a friend who was 
going to the continent, that he would not pay a visit to Voltaire ; and when 
his friend replied, " What can a visit from a person like me to him signify ?" 
he rejoined, with peculiar earnestness, "Sir, every tribute to such a man 
signifies." If such sentiments were more generally felt and acted on, men 
of elevated positions would not so often presume upon their talents, or elo- 
quence, or learning, as being a sufficient covering for their moral deficiencies. 



THE PROGRESS OF POESY. 

I. 1. 

Awake, -^x)lian lyre, awake,* 
And give to rapture all thy trembling strings. 
From Helicon's harmonious springs^ 
A thousand rills their mazy progress take : 
The laughing flowers, that round them blow, 
Drink life and fragrance as they flow. 
Now the rich stream of music winds along, 
Deep, majestic, smooth, and strong. 
Through verdant vales, and Ceres' golden reign : 
Now rolling down the steep amain 
Headlong, impetuous, see it pour: 
The rocks, and nodding groves, rebellow to the roar. 

I. 2. 
Oh ! Sovereign of the willing soul,3 
Parent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs, 
Enchanting shell! the sullen Cares, 
And frantic Passions, hear thy soft control. 
On Thracia's hills the Lord of War 
Has curb'd the fury of his car, 
And dropp'd his thirsty lance at thy command. 
Perching on the scepter'd hand 
Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king 
With ruffled plumes, and flagging wing : 
Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie 
The terror of his beak, and lightning of his eye. 

^ Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp. — Psalm Ivii. 8. 

^ The subject and simile, as usual with Pindar, are united. The various 
sources of poetry, which gives life and lustre to all it touches, are here de- 
scribed ; its quiet majestic progress enriching every subject (otherwise dry 
and barren) with a pomp of diction and luxuriant harmony of numbers ; and 
its more rapid and irresistible course, when swollen and hurried away by the 
conflict of tumultuous passions. 

^ Power of harmony to calm the turbulent sallies of the soul. The thoughts 
are borrowed from the first Pythian of Pindar. 



1760-1820.] GRAY. 527 

I. 3. 

Thee the voice, the dance, obey,^ 
Temper 'd to thy warbled lay, 
O'er Idalia's velvet-green 
The rosy-crowned Loves are seen. 
On Cytherea's day 

With antic sports, and blue-ey'd pleasures, 
Frisking light in frolic measures; 
Now pursuing, now retreating, 
Now in circling troops they meet : 
To brisk notes in cadence beating 
Glance their many-twinkling feet. 
Slow melting strains their Queen's approach declare; 
Where'er she turns, the Graces homage pay. 
With arts sublime, that float upon the air, 
In gliding state she wins her easy way : 
O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move 
The bloom of young Desire, and purple light of Love. 

n. 1, 

Man's feeble race what ills await,2 
Labor, and penury, the racks of pain, 
Disease, and sorrow's weeping train, 
And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate! 
The fond complaint, my song, disprove, 
And justify the laws of Jove, 
Say, has he given in vain the heavenly Muse 1 
Night, and all her sickly dews. 
Her spectres wan, and birds of boding cry, 
He gives to range the dreary sky : 
Till down the eastern cliffs afar^ 
Hyperion's march they spy, and glittering shafts of war. 

H. 2, 
In climes beyond the solar road,* 
Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam, 
The Muse has broke the twilight-gloom 
To cheer the shivering native's dull abode. 
And oft, beneath the odorous shade 
Of Chili's boundless forests laid, 
She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat 
In loose numbers wildly sweet 

* Power of harmony to produce all the graces of motion in the body. 
To compensate the real and imaginary ills of life, the Muse was given to 
mankind by the same Providence that sends the day, by its cheerful presence, 
to dispel the gloom and terrors of the night. 

^ Or seen the morning's well-appointed star 
Come marching up the eastern hills afar. — Cowley. 
' Extensive influence of poetic genius over the remotest and most uncivilized 
nations: its connection with liberty, and the virtues that naturally attend on it. 



528 GRAY. [george hi. 

Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dusky loves. 

Her track, where'er the goddess roves, 

Glory pursue, and generous shame, 

Tb' unconquerable mind, and Freedom's holy flame. 

II. 3. 

Woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep,* 
Isles, that crown th' ^gean deep, 
Fields, that cool Ilissus laves. 
Or where Maeander's amber waves 
In lingering labyrinths creep. 
How do your tuneful echoes languish 
Mute, but to the voice of anguish 1 
"Where each old poetic mountain 
Inspiration breath'd around : 
Every shade and hallow'd fountain 
Murmur'd deep a solemn sound : 
Till the sad Nine, in Greece's evil hour, 
Left their Parnassus, for the Latian plains. 
AUke they scorn the pomp of tyrant-power, 
And coward vice, that revels in her chains. 
When Latium had her lofty spirit lost. 
They sought, oh Albion ! next thy sea-encircled coast. 

III. 1. 

Far from the sun and summer-gale. 
In thy green lap was Nature's^ darling laid, 
What time, where lucid Avon stray'd, 
To him the mighty mother did unveil 
Her awful face : The dauntless child 
Stretch 'd forth his little arms, and smil'd. 
This pencil take (she said) whose colors clear 
Richly paint the vernal year : 
Thine too these golden keys, immortal Boy ! 
This can unlock the gates of joy ; 
Of horror that, and thrilling fears, 
Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears. 

m. 2. 

Nor second He,3 that rode sublime 
Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy, 
The secrets of th' abyss to spy. 
He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time : 
The living throne,^ the sapphire-blaze, 
Where angels tremble, while they gaze, 

'■ Progress of Poetry from Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. 
Chaucer was not unacquainted with the writings of Dante, or of Petrarch. 
The Earl of Surrey, and Sir Thomas Wyatt, had travelled in Italy, and had 
formed their taste there; Spenser imitated the Italian writers; Milton im- 
proved on them ; but this school expired soon after the Restoration, and a 
new one arose on the French model, which has subsisted ever since. 

= Shakspeare. ^ Milton. 

* For the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels — and above the 



1760-1820.] GRAY. 529 

He saw : but, blasted with excess of light, 

Clos'd his eyes in endless night. 

Behold, where Diyden's less presumptuous car, 

Wide o'er the fields of glory bear 

Two coursers of ethereal race,^ 

With necks in thunder cloth'd,^ and long-resounding pace. 

III. 3. 
Hark, his hands the lyre explore ! 
Bright-ey'd fancy hovering o'er 
Scatters from her pictur'd urn 
Thoughts, that breathe, and words, that burn.^ 
But ah ! 'tis heard no more — 
Oh! lyre divine, what daring spirit 
Wakes thee now ? though he inherit 
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion, 
That the Theban eagle bear"* 
Sailing with supreme dominion 
Through the azure deep of air: 
Yet oft before his infant eyes would run. 
Such forms, as glitter in the Muse's ray 
With orient hues, unborrow'd of the sun : 
Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way 
Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate. 
Beneath the good how far — but far above the great. 



I. 1. 

" Ruin seize thee, ruthless King I^ 
Confusion on thy banners wait ! 
Though fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing, 
They mock the air with idle state. 

firmament, that was over their heads, was the likeness of a throne, as the 
appearance of a sapphire-stone. — This was the appearance of the glory of the 
'LorA.—Ezekiel i. 20, 26, 28. 

'■ Meant to express the stately march and sounding energy of Dryden's 
rhymes. 

^ Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? — Job. 

^ Words, that weep, and tears, that speak. — Cowley. 

* Pindar compares himself to that bird, and his enemies to ravens that croak 
and clamor in vain below, while it pursues its flight, regardless of their noise. 

* This ode is founded on a tradition current in Wales, that Edward the 
First, when he completed the conquest of that country, ordered all the Bards 
that fell into his hands to be put to death. 

" Over this inimitable ode a tinge so wildly awful, so gloomily terrific is 
thrown, as without any exception to place it at the head of lyric poetry." — 
Brokers Literary Hours. 

^ Ruin seize thee, ruthless King.] This abrupt execration plunges the 

reader into that sudden, fearful perplexity which is designed to predominate 

through the whole. The irresistible violence of the prophet's passions bears 

him away, who, as he is unprepared by a formal ushering in of the speaker, 

34 



530 GRAY. [gEORGE III. 

Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail,^ 
Nor e'en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail 
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, 
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears !" 
Such were the sounds, that o'er the crested pride 

Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay, 
As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side^ 

He wound with toilsome march his long array. 
Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance .^ 
"To arms!" cried Mortimer, and couch"d his quivering lance.* 

I. 2. 

On a rock, whose haughty browS 

Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood, 
Robed in the sable garb of woe, 

With haggard eyes the Poet stood; 
(Loose his beard, and hoary hair^ 
Stream'd, hke a meteor, to the troubled air ;') 
And with a master's hand, and prophet's fire, 
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre. 
" Hark, how each giant oak, and desert cave, 

Sighs to the torrent's awful voice beneath ! 
O'er thee, oh King! their hundred arms they wave, 

Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe ; 

is unfortified against the impressions of his poetical frenzy, and overpowered 
by them, as sudden thunders strike the deepest. All readers of taste, I fancyy 
have felt this effect from the passage ; they will be pleased, however, to see 
their own feelings so well expressed as they are in this note. — Mason. 

* Helm, nor hauberk's twisted mail.] The hauberk was a texture of steel 
ringlets, or rings interwoven, forming a coat of mail, that sat close to the 
body, and adapted itself to every motion. 

^ As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side.] Snowdon was a name 
given by the Saxons to that mountainous tract which the Welsh themselves 
call Craigian-eryrie : it included all the highlands of Caernarvonshire and Me- 
rionethshire, as far east as the river Conway. 

3 Stout Glo'ster stood aghast in speechless trance.] Gilbert de Clare, sur- 
named the Red, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, son-in-law to King Edward. 

^ " To arms !" cried Mortimer, and couch'd his quivering lance.] Edmond 
de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore. 

They both were Lords Marchers, whose lands lay on the borders of Wales, 
and probably accompanied the king in this expedition. 

^ On a rock.] The turbulent impetuosity of the preceding stanza, and the 
sedate majesty of this, form a most pleasing and animated contrast. — Wake- 
field. 

« Loose his beard, and hoary hair.] The image was taken from a well- 
known picture of Raphael, representing the Supreme Being in the vision of 
Ezekiel : there are two of these paintings, both believed to be originals j one 
at Florence, the other in the Duke of Orleans' collection at Paris. 

' Stream'd, like a meteor, to the troubled air.j 

"Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurl'd 
The imperial ensign, which full high advanc'd. 
Shone, like a meteor, streaming to the wind.'' 

Paradise Lost, i. 535. 



1760-1820.] GRAY. 53i 

Vocal no more, since Cambria's fatal day, 

To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay."i 

I. 3, 

" Cold is Cadwallo's tongue. 

That hush'd the stormy main : 
Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed : 

Mountains, ye mourn in vain 
Modred, whose magic song 

Made huge Plinlimmon bow his eloud-topt head.2 
On dreary Arvon's shore they lie,3 

Smear"d with gore, and ghastly pale : 

Far, far aloof th' affrighted ravens sail ; 
The famish'd eagle screams, and passes by.* 
Dear lost companions of my tuneful art, 

Dear, a^ the light that visits these sad eyes, 
Dear, as the ruddy drops that warm my heart, 

Ye died amidst your dying country's cries — 
No more I weep .5 They do not sleep. 

On yonder cliffs, a griesly band, 
I see them sit; they linger yet, 

Avengers of their native land : 
With me in dreadful harmony they join, 
And weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line." 

II. 1. 

"Weave the warp, and weave the woof,^ 
The winding-sheet of Edward's race. 

Give ample room, and verge enough 
The characters of hell to trace. 

^ To liigh-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.] " Hoel," observes 
Mr. Mitford, " is called high-horn, as being the son of Owen Gwynedd, prince 
of North Wales." Llewellyn-s poetry, we are told, was characterized by 
his countrymen as a soft lay, and the Bard is himself styled the tender-hearted 
prince. 

Dr. Evans mentions Cadwallo and TJrien among those Bards of whom no 
works remain. 



2 ■■ Cloud-topt head.] 

"The doud-capt towers." — Shakspeare. 

^ On dreary Arvon's shore they lie.] The shores of Caernarvonshire oppo- 
site to the Isle of Anglesey. 

* The famish'd eagle screams, and passes by.] Camden and others observe, 
that eagles used annually to build their aerie among the rocks of Snov/don, 
which from thence (as some think) were named by the Welsh Craigian-eryrie, 
or the Crags of the Eagles. At this day the highest point of Snowdon is called 
the Eagle's Nest. 

5 No more I weep. They do not sleep.] Here, says an anonymous critic, 
a vision of triumphant revenge is judiciously made to ensue, after the pathetic 
lamentation which precedes it. Breaks — double rhymes— an appropriated 
cadence — and an exalted ferocity of language forcibly picture to us the un- 
controllable tumultuous workings of the prophet's stimulated bosom. — Mason. 

6 Weave the warp, and weave the woof.] Can there be an image more just, 
apposite, and nobly imagined than this tremendous tragical winding-sheet ? 






532 GRAY. [gEORGE III. 

Mark the year, and mark the night. 

When Severn shall re-echo with affright 

The shrieks of death, through Berkley's roof that ring.' 

Shrieks of an agonizing King ! 

She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,2 
That tear'st the bowels of thy mangled mate, 

From thee be born, who o'er thy country hangs^ 
The scourge of heav'n ! What terrors round him wait ! 
Amazement in his van, with flight combin'd. 
And sorrow's faded form, and solitude behind." 

II. 2. 

" Mighty victor, mighty lord, 
Low on his funeral couch he lies!^ 

No pitying heart, no eye, afford 
A tear to grace his obsequies. 

Is the sable warrior fled P 
Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead. 
The swarm, that in thy noon-tide beam were born ?*> 
Gone to salute the rising morn. 
Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,' 

While proudly riding o'er the azure realm 
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes ; 

Youth on the prow, and pleasure at the helm ; 
Regardless of the sweeping v.^iirlwind's sway, 
That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening prey.''^ 

In the rest of this stanza the wildness of thought, expression, and cadence, 
are admirably adapted to the character and situation of the speaker, and of 
the bloody spectres, his assistants. It is not indeed peculiar to it alone, but 
a. beauty that runs throughout the whole composition, that the historical events 
are briefly sketched out by a few striking circumstances, in which the Poet's 
ofhce of rather exciting and directing, than satisfying the reader's imagination, 
is perfectly observed. Such abrupt hints, resembling the several fragments 
of a vast ruin, suffer not the mind to be raised to the utmost pitch by one 
image of horror, but that instantaneously a second and a third are presented 
to it, and the affection is still uniformly supported. — Anon. Critic. 

^ The shrieks of death, through Berkley's roof that ring.] Edward the 
Second, cruelly butchered in Berkley Castle. 

2 She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs.] Isabel of France, Edward 
the Second's adulterous Queen, whose relentless cruelty is well known. 

^ From thee be born, who o'er thy country hangs.] Triumphs of Edward 
the Third in France. 

* Low on his funeral couch he lies.] Death of that king, abandoned by his 
children, and even robbed in his last moments by his courtiers and his mistress. 

= Is the sable warrior fled ?] Edward, the Black Prince, dead some time 
before his father. 

" The swarm, that in thy noon-tide beam were born,] The summer friends, 
in the Hymn to Adversity. 

This image is inexpressibly beautiful, but not superior to that which it so 
happily and unaffectedly introduces. — Wakefield. 

■" Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows.] Magnificence of Richard 
the Second's reign. — See Froissart, and other cotemporary writers. — Gray. 

^ That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey.] This representa- 
tion of the whirlwind^ under the image of a beast of prey lying in ambusk in the 



1760-1820.] GRAY. 533 

II. 3. 

"Fill high the sparkling bowl,' 
The rich repast prepare, 

Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast : 
Close by the regal chair 

Fell thirst and famine scowl 

A baleful smile upon their baffled giir.st.2 
Heard ye the din of battle bray ,3 

Lance to lance, and horse to horse'? 

Long years of havoc urge their destined course, 
And through the kindred squadrons mow their way. 

Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame,^ 
With many a foul and midnight murder fed. 

Revere his consort's faith, his father's fame,5 
And spare the meek usurper's holy head l^ 

day-time, expectant of the night, is not only perfectly just and natural, but 
incomparably sublime. — Wakefield. 

^ Fill high the sparkling bowl.] Richard the Second (as we are told by 
Archbishop Scroop and the confederate lords in their manifesto, by Thomas 
of Walsingham, and all the older writers), was starved to death. The stoi-y of 
his assassination, by Sir Piers of Exon, is of much later date. — Gray. 

This stanza (as an ingenious friend remarks) has exceeding merit. It 
breathes in a lesser compass, what the ode breathes at large, the high spirit 
of lyric enthusiasm. The transitions are sudden and impetuous ; the language 
full of fire and force; and the imagery carried, without impropriety, to the 
most daring height. The manner of Richard's death by famine exhibits such 
beauties of personification, as only the richest and most vivid imagination 
could supply. From thence we are hurried, with the wildest rapidity, into 
the midst of battle; and the epithet kindred places at once before our eyes 
all the peculiar horrors of civil war. Immediately, by a transition most strik- 
ing and unexpected, the poet falls into a tender and pathetic address; which, 
from the sentiments, and also from the numbers, has all the melancholy flow, 
and breathes all the plaintive softness, of Elegy. Again the scene changes; 
again the Bard rises into an allegorical description of carnage, to which the 
metre is admirably adapted : and the concluding sentence of personal punish- 
ment on Edward is denounced with a solemnity, that chills and terrifies. — 
Mason. 

2 A baleful smile upon their baffled guest.] What can exceed the terrible 
sublimity of this picture ? and what is at all worthy to be put in competition 
with it, except that of Milton, which our author seems to have had in view ? 

" He ceased, for both seemed highly pleased; and Death 
Grinn'd horrible, a ghastly s?rdle." — Paradise Lost, ii. 845, 

3 Heard ye the din of battle bray.] Ruinous wars of York and Lancaster. 
— Gray, 

'* Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame.] Henry the Sixth, George 
Duke oF Clarence, Edward the Fifth, Richard Duke of York, &c., believed to 
be murdered secretly in the Tower of London. The oldest part of that struc- 
ture is vulgarly attributed to Julius Caesar. 

5 Revere his consort's faith.] Margaret of Anjou, a woman of heroic spirit, 
who struggled hard to save her husband and her crown. 

His father's fame.] Henry the Fifth. 

« And spare the meek usurper's holy head.] Henry the Sixth, very nenr 
being canonized. The line of Lancaster had no right of inheritance to the 
crown. 



534 GRAY. [george hi. 

Above, below, the rose of snow,' 

Twined with her Hushing foe, we spread : 
The bristled Boar in infant gore2 

Wallows beneath the thorny shade. 
Now, brothers, bending o'er th' accursed loom, 
Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom.'* 

III. L 

" Edward, lo ! to sudden fate 
(Weave we the woof. The thread is spun) 

Half of thy heart we consecrate.^ 
(The web is wove. The work is done.) 
Stay, oh stay ! nor thus forlorn 
Leave me unblessed, unpitied, here to mourn : 
In yon bright track, that fires the western skieSj 
They melt, they vanish from my eyes. 
But oh ! what solemn scenes on Snowdon's height 

Descending slow, their glittering skirts unroll '? 
Visions of glory, spare my aching sight, 

Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul ! 
No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail.4 
All hail, ye genuine kings! Britannia's issue, hail!"* 

III. 2. 

"Girt with many a baron bold, 
Sublime their starry fronts they rearj 

And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old 
In bearded majesty, appear. 
In the midst a form divine ! 
Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-line; 
Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face,6 
Attempered sweet to virgin grace. 

'■ Above, below, the rose of snow.] The white and red roses, devices of 
York and Lancaster. 

^ The bristled Boar in infant gore.] The silver boar was the badge of 
Richard the Third ; whence he was usually known in bis own time by the 
name of the hoar. 

^ Half of thy heart we consecrate.] Eleanor of Castile died a few years 
after the conquest of Wales. The heroic proof she gave of her affection for 
her lord is well known. The monuments of his regret and sorrow for the loss 
of her, are still to be seen at Northampton, Gaddington, Waltham, and other 
places. 

* No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail.] It was the common belief of 
the Welsh nation, that King Arthur was still alive in Fairyland, and should 
return again to reign over Britain. 

= All hail, ye genuine Kings ! Britannia's issue, hail.] Both Merlin and 
Taliessin had prophesied, that the Welsh should regain their sovereignty over 
this island; which seemed to be accomplished in the house of Tudor. 

8 Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face.] Speed, relating an audience 
given by Queen Elizabeth to Paul Dzialinski, ambassador of Poland, says, 
" And thus she, lion-like rising, daunted the malapert orator no less with her 
stately port and majestical deporture, than with the tartnesse of her princelie 
checkes." 



1760-1820.] GRAY. 535 

What strings symphonious tremble in the air, 
What strains of vocal transport round her play ! 

Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear !^ 
They breathe a soul to animate thy clay. 

Bright rapture calls, and soaring, as she sings, 

Waves in tlie eye of heaven her many-colored wings." 

III. 3. 

" The verse adorn again 

Fierce war, and faithful love, 
And truth severe, by fairy fiction drest. 

In buskin'd measures move 
Pale grief, and pleasing pain. 
With horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.^ 

A voice, as of the cherub choir. 
Gales from blooming Eden bear f 
And distant warblings lessen on my ear,* 

That lost in long futurity expire. 
Fond impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud. 

Raised by thy breath, has quench 'd the orb of day? 
To-morrow he repairs the golden flood. 

And warms the nations with redoubled ray. 
Enough for me : with joy I see 

The different doom our fates assign. 
Be thine despair, and sceptred care ; 

To triumph, and to die, are mine." 
He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height 
Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night.s 

' Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear.] Taliessin, chief of the Bards, 
flourished in the sixth century. His works are still preserved, and his memory 
is held in high veneration among his countrymen. 

2 Shakspeare. ' Milton. 

* And distant w^arblings lessen on my ear.] The succession of poets after 
Milton's time. 

s The original argument of this capital Ode, as its author had set it down 
in one of the pages of his common-place book, is as follows : " The army of 
Edward I., as they march through a deep valley, are suddenly stopped by the 
appearance of a venerable figure seated on the summit of an inaccessible rock, 
who, with a voice more than human, reproaches the king with all the misery 
and desolation which he had brought on his country; foretells the misfortunes 
of the Norman race, and with prophetic spirit declares, that all his cruelty 
shall never extinguish the noble ardor of poetic genius in this island ; and 
that men shall never be wanting to celebrate true virtue and valor in immortal 
strains, to expose vice and infamous pleasure, and boldly censure tyranny and 
oppression. His song ended, he precipitates himself from the mountain, and 
is swallowed up by the river that rolls at its foot." 



536 GRAY. [gEORGE III. 



ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.' 

The Curfew tolls2 the knell of parting day, 
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, 
The plowman homeward plods his weary way, 
And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 
And all the air a solemn stillness holds. 
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds; 

Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower, 
The moping owl does to the moon complain 
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower. 
Molest her ancient solitary reign. 

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,3 
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap. 
Each in his narrow cell forever laid, 
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn, 
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed. 
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, 
Or busy housewife ply her evening care : 
No children run to Lisp their sire's return. 
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. 

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield. 
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke ,- 
How jocund did they drive their team afield ! 
How iDOw'd the woods beneath their sttu-dy stroke! 

* The reasons of that universal approbation with which this Elegy has been 
received, may be learned from the comprehensive encomium of Dr. Johnson : 
" It abounds with images which find a mirror in every soul; and with senti- 
ments, to which every bosom returns an echo." 

" Had Gray written nothing but his Elegy, high as he stands, I am not sure 
that he would not stand higher ; it is the corner-stone of his glory." — Lord 
Byron. 

^ Dr. Warton v/ould spoil the tranquil simplicity of this line, by introducing 
a pause with a note of admiration after the word " tolls," But such affecta- 
tion of solemnity and suddenness in his musing is nowhere to be found in 
our author. 

3 This line I find so printed in all the editions : I would, however, suggest 
as an amendment 

Beneath those rugged elms that yew-trees shade, 
making "that" a relative pronoun the nominative to the verb "shade," in- 
stead of a demonstrative agreeing with " shade" as a noun; and " yew-trees" 
in the objective plural, and governed by the verb "shade." I think this more 
easy, natural, and strictly correct. 



1760-1820.] GRAY. 537 

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, 
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure ; 
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,, 
The short and simple annals of the poor. 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
Await alike th' inevitable hour. 
The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 

Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault, 
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, 
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault, 
The pealing anthem sv/ells the note of praise. 

Can storied urn or animated bust 
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? 
Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust. 
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death ? 

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire j 
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd, 
Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre. 

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll ; 
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage. 
And froze the genial current of the soul. 

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,' 
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear : 
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. 
And waste its sweetness on tlie desert air. 

Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast^ 
The little tyrant of his fields withstood; 
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, 
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. 

Th' applause of listening senates to command. 
The threats of pain and ruin to despise, 

* A writer in the ninth volume of the Quarterly Review cites the following 
passage from Bishop Hall's Contemplations, as a singular instance of acci' 
dental resemblance : " There is many a rich stone laid up in the bowels of 
the earth, many a fair pearl in the bosom of the sea, that never was seen, nor 
never shall be." So Milton in his Comus speaks of the 

'* Sea-girt isles. 

That, like to rich and various gems, inlay 
The unadorned bosom of the deep." 
2 " What son of Freedom is not in raptures with this tribute of praise to 
such an exalted character, in immortal verse ? This honorable testimony 
and the noble detestation of arbitrary power, with which it is accompanied, 
might possibly be one cause of Dr. Johnson's animosity against our poet. 
Upon this topic, the critic's feelings, we know, were irritability itself and 
' tremblingly alive all o'er.' " 



538 GRAY. [george III. 

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, 
And read their history in a nation's eyes, 

Their lot forbade : nor circumscrib'd alone 
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd; 
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne. 
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.* 

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, 
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, 
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride 
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. 

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, 
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray ; 
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life 
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. 

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect. 

Some frail memorial still erected nigh, 

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture^ deck'd, 

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse, 
The place of fame and elegy supply: 
And many a holy text around she strews. 
That teach the rustic moralist to die. 

For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, 
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd. 
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, 
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind? 

On some fond breast the parting soul relies. 
Some pious drops the closing eye requires ; 
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, 
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.3 

^ Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, 
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.] These two verses 
are specimens of sublimity of the purest kind, like the simple grandeur of 
Hebrew poetry; depending solely on the thought, unassisted by epithets and 
the artificial decorations of expression. 

^ " In Gray's Elegy, is there an image more striking than his < shapeless 
sculpture ?' " — Lord Byron. 
2 " In the first edition it stood, 

' Awake and faithful to her wonted fires,' 
and I think rather better. He means to say, in plain prose, that we wish to 
be remembered by our friends after our death, in the same manner as when 
alive we wished to be remembered by them in our absence : this would be 
expressed clearer, if the metaphorical term * fires' was rejected, and the line 
run thus ; 

' Awake and faithful to her first desires.' 
I do not put this alteration down for the idle vanity of aiming to amend the 
passage, but purely to explain it." — Mason. 



1760-1820.] GRAY. 539 

For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonor'd Dead, 
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate ; 
If chance, by lonely contemplation led, 
Some kindred Spirit shall inquire thy fate. 

Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say, 
" Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn 
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away 
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. 

" There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, 
His listless length at noontide would he stretch, 
And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 

" Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, 
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove, 
Now drooping woeful wan, like one forlorn, 
Or craz'd with care, or cross'd. in hopeless love. 

" One morn I miss'd him on the accustom'd hill. 
Along the heath and near his favorite tree ; 
Another came; nor yet beside the rill, 
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he ; 

" The next with dirges due in sad array 
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne- 
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay, 
Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."* 

THE EPITAPH. 

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth 
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown. 
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, 
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own. 

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, 

Heaven did a recompense as largely send: 

He gave to Misery all he had, a tear; 

He gain'd from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend. 

No farther seek his merits to disclose. 
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, 
(There they alike in trembling hope repose,) 
The bosom of his Father and his God .2 

* Between this line and the Epitaph, Mr. Gray originally inserted a very 
beautiful stanza, which was printed in some of the first editions, but after- 
wards omitted, because he thought (and in my opinion very justly) that it was 
too long a parenthesis in this place. The lines, however, are, in themselves, 
exquisitely fine, and demand preservation. — Mason. 

"There scattered oft, the earliest of the year, 
By hands unseen are showers of violets found ; 
The red-breast loves to build and warble there, 
And little footsteps lightly print the ground." 
^ This epitaph has been commented on, and translated into different Ian- 



540 HAWKESWORTH. [gEORGE III, 



JOHN HAWKESWORTH, 1719—1773. 

But little is known of the family or early history of John Hawkes worth. He 
was born in the year 1719, but how or where educated it is not known. His 
first appearance as a writer was in 1744, at the age of twenty-five, when he was 
engaged by the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine to succeed Dr. Johnson 
as compiler of the Parhamentary Debates ; so that he must have had, at that 
time, considerable reputation as a literary character. In 1752, owing to the 
success which the " Rambler" had met with, he was induced to project and 
commence a periodical paper, under the title of " The Adventurer," having 
received the promise of assistance from Johnson, Warton, and others. For 
a work of this kind he was eminently qualified. His learning, though not 
deep, was elegant and various; his style was polished, his imagination 
ardent, his standard of morals high, and he possessed an intimate knowledge 
of the world. The first number of the " Adventurer" was published on the 
7th of November, 1752, and the paper was continued every Tuesday and 
Saturday, until the 9th of March, 1754. The name, design, and manage- 
ment, and the writing of seventy of the one hundred and forty numbers, are 
to be ascribed to Hawkesworth. The sale, during its circulation in separate 
papers, was very extensive; and when thrown into volumes, four large edi- 
tions passed through the press in eight years. " The variety, the fancy, the 
taste, and practical moraUfy, which the pages of this periodical paper exhibit, 
were such as to ensure popularity ; and it may be pronounced, as a whole, 
the most spirited and fascinating of the class to which it belongs. "^ 

The reputation which Hawkesworth had acquired induced him, at the 
request of Garrick, to turn his attention to the drama, and in 1760, he 
brought forward his first piece, called " Zimri, an Oratorio," which was 
tolerably well received. A few other plays followed ; but as they did not 
meet with great success, in 1765 he undertook the office of Reviewer in the 
Gentleman's Magazine ; which department he filled with great ability until 
the year 1772. In 1765 he published an edition of Swift's works, in 12 
volumes, accompanied by explanatory notes, and prefixed with a well- written 
life. 

On the return of Captain Cook from his first voyage of discovery in the 
South Seas, it being thought desirable, by government, to entrust the task 
of compiling an account of the voyage to a literary man, rather than to one 
of the voyagers, Dr. Hawkesworth's reputation as a beautiful and able 
writer obtained for him the commission. He completed his task in 1773, 
in 3 vols, quarto, which were illustrated by charts, maps, and engravings, 

guages, by various men of eminence, most of them divines. Did it never 
occur to any of these, that there was an impropriety in making the " bosom" 
of Almighty God an abode for human frailty to repose in ? Unless, therefore, 
the author meant by the word " bosom," only remembrance, there is certainly 
a great inconsistency in the expression. 
'■ Drake's Essays, vol. v. p. 7. 



1760-1S20.] HAWKESWORTH. 541 

executed in a very splendid manner. For this labor he received the princely 
remuneration of six thousand pounds. The work, however, met with very 
severe and deserved censure, owing to the glowing representations and the 
licentious pictures it presented of the manners and customs of the islanders 
of the South Seas ; and to some speculations of a religious character which 
seemed to border upon skepticism. His enemies made the most of these 
defects, and held them up to public ridicule and censure ; and so keen was 
his sensibility, that his health was soon affected by it, and he died on the 
16th of November of the same year, 1773. 

Dr. Hawkesworth was certainly an elegant scholar. " His writings, with 
the exception of the last ill-fated work, have a tendency uniformly conducive 
to the interests of virtue and religion; and we may add, that the errors of 
that unfortunate production must be attributed rather to defect of judgment, 
than to a dereliction of principle. His imagination was fertile and briUiant, 
his diction pure, elegant, and unaffected. He was in a high degree charita- 
ble, humane, and benevolent ; his r.^.anners were polished and affable, and 
his conversation has been described as uncommonly fascinating. He died, 
it is said, tranquil and resigned, and, we trust, deriving hope and comfort 
from a firm belief in that religion which his best writings had been employed 
to defend." 



VALUE OF FAMILIAR LETTERS. 

In a series of familiar letters between the same friends for 
thirty years, their whole life, as it were, passes in review before 
us ; we live with them, we hear them talk, we mark the vigor 
of life, the ardor of expectation, the hurry of business, the jol- 
lity of their social meetings, and the sport of their fancy in the 
sweet intervals of leisure and retirement; we see the scene 
gradually change ; hope and expectation are at an end ; they 
regret pleasures that are past, and friends that are dead ; they 
complain of disappointment and infirmity ; they are con- 
scious that the sands of life which remain are few ; and while 
we hear them regret the approach of the last, it falls, and we 
lose them in the grave. Such as they were, we feel ourselves 
to be ; we are conscious to sentiments, connections, and situa- 
tions like theirs ; we find ourselves in the same path, urged for- 
ward by the same necessity ; and the parallel in what has been, 
is carried on with such force to what shall be, that the future 
almost becomes present; and we wonder at the new power of 
those truths, of which we never doubted the reality and im- 
portance, 

1 From his Preface to the Letters of Dean Swift. 



542 HAWKESWORTH. [gEORGE III. 



DANGER OF RELAPSE AFTER PURPOSES OF AMENDMENT. 

The dread of death has seldom been found to intrude upon 
the cheerfulness, simplicity, and innocence of children ; they 
gaze at a funeral procession with as much vacant curiosity, as 
at any other show, and see the world change before them with- 
out the least sense of their own share in the vicissitude. In 
youth, when all the appetites are strong, and every gratification 
is heightened by novelty, the mind resists mournful impressions 
with a kind of elastic power, by which the signature that is 
forced upon it is immediately effaced : when this tumult first 
subsides, while the attachment of life is yet strong, and the 
mind begins to look forward, and concert measures by which 
those enjoyments may be secured which it is solicitous to keep, 
or others obtained to atone for the disappointments that are past, 
then death starts up like a spectre in all his terrors, the blood is 
chilled at his appearance, he is perceived to approach with a 
constant and irresistible pace ; retreat is impossible, and resist- 
ance is vain. 

The terror and anguish which this image produces whenever 
it first rushes upon the mind, are always complicated with a 
sense of guilt and remorse ; and generally produce some hasty 
and zealous purposes of more uniform virtue and more ardent 
devotion, of something that may secure us not only from the 
worm that never dies, and the fire that is not quenched, but 
from total mortality, and admit hope to the regions beyond the 
grave. 

This purpose is seldom wholly relinquished, though it is not 
always executed with vigor and perseverance ; the reflection 
which produced it, often recurs, but it still recurs with less force ; 
desire of immediate pleasure becomes predominant; appetite is 
no longer restrained ; and either all attempts to secure future 
happiness are deferred " to a more convenient season," or some 
expedients are sought to render sensuality and virtue compatible, 
and to obtain every object of hope without lessening the trea- 
sures of possession. Thus vice naturally becomes the disciple 
of infidelity ; and the wretch who dares not aspire to the heroic 
virtue of a Christian, listens with eagerness to every objection 
against the authority of that law by which he is condemned, 
and labors in vain to establish another that will acquit him : he 
forms many arguments to justify natural desires; he learns at 

^ Adventurer, No. 130. 



1760-1820.] HAWKESWORTH. 543 

length to impose upon himself; and assents to principles which 
yet in his heart he does not believe ; he thinks himself con- 
vinced, that virtue must be happiness, and then dreams that 
happiness is virtue. 

Let those who still delay that which yet they believe to be 
of eternal moment, remember that their motives to effect it will 
still grow weaker, and the difficulty of the work perpetually 
increase ; to neglect it now, therefore, is a pledge that it will be 
neglected forever : and if they are roused by this thought, let 
them instantly improve its influence; for even this thought 
when it returns, will return with less power, and though it 
should rouse them now, will perhaps rouse them no more. 
But let them not confide in such virtue as can be practised with- 
out a struggle, and which interdicts the gratification of no pas- 
sion but malice ; nor adopt principles which could never be 
believed at the only time when they could be useful ; like argu- 
ments which men sometimes form when they slumber, and the 
moment they awake discover to be absurd. 

Let those who in the anguish of an awakened mind have 
regretted the past, and resolved to redeem it in the future, per- 
sist invariably to do whatever they then wished to have done. 
Let this be established as a constant rule of action, and opposed 
to all the cavils of sophistry and sense ; for this wish will ine- 
vitably return when it must for ever be ineffectual, at that awful 
moment when " the shadow of death shall be stretched over 
them, and that night commence in which no man can work." 

HOW FAR THE PRECEPT TO LOVE OUR ENEMIES IS PRACTICABLE. ^ 

To love an enemy, is the distinguishing characteristic of a 
religion, which is not of man but of God. It could be delivered 
as a precept only by Him, who lived and died to estabhsh it by 
his example. 

At the close of that season, in which human frailty has com- 
memorated sufferings which it could not sustain, a season in 
which the most zealous devotion can only substitute a change 
of food for a total abstinence of forty days ; it cannot, surely, 
be incongruous to consider, what approaches we can make to 
that divine love which these sufferings expressed, and how far 
man, in imitation of his Saviour, can bless those who curse him, 
and return good for evil. 

We cannot, indeed, behold the example but at a distance ; 

'■ Adventurer, No. 48. 



544 HAWKESWORTH. [gEORGE III. 

nor consider it without being struck with a sense of our own 
debility: every man who compares his life with this divine rule, 
instead of exulting in his own excellence, will smite his breast 
like the publican, and cry out, " God be merciful to me a sin- 
ner !" Thus to acquaint us with ourselves, may, perhaps, be one 
use of the precept ; but the precept cannot, surely, be considered 
as having no other. 

I know it will be said, that our passions are not in our 
power ; and that, therefore, a precept, to love or to hate, is im- 
possible; for if the gratification of all our wishes was offered us 
to love a stranger as we love a child, we could not fulfil the 
condition, however we might desire the reward. 

But admitting this to be true, and that we cannot love an 
enemy as we love a friend ; it is yet equally certain, that we 
may perform those actions which are produced by love, from a 
higher principle : we may, perhaps, derive moral excellence 
from natural defects, and exert our reason instead of indulging 
a passion. If our enemy hungers, we may feed him, and if he 
thirsts, we may give him drink : this, if we could love him, 
would be our conduct; and this may still be our conduct, 
though to love him is impossible. The Christian will be 
prompted to relieve the necessities of his enemy, by his love to 
God: he will rejoice in an opportunity to express the zeal of 
his gratitude and the alacrity of his obedience, at the same 
time that he appropriates the promises and anticipates his 
reward. 

But though he who is beneficent upon these principles, may 
in the Scripture sense, be said to love his enemy ; yet some- 
thing more may still be effected: the passion itself in some 
degree is in our power ; we may rise to a yet nearer emulation 
of divine forgiveness, we may think as well as act with kind- 
ness, and be sanctified as well in heart as in life. 

Though love and hatred are necessarily produced in the 
human breast, when the proper objects of these passions occur, 
as the color of material substances is necessarily perceived by 
an eye before which they are exhibited ; yet it is in our power 
to change the passion, and to cause either love or hatred to be 
excited by placing the same object in different circumstances; 
as a changeable silk of blue and yellow ma}^ be held so as to 
excite the idea either of yellow or blue. 

No act is deemed more injurious, or resented with greater 
acrimony, than the marriage of a child, especially of a daughter, 
without the consent of a parent : it is frequently considered as 
a breach of the strongest and tenderest obligations ; as folly and 



1760-1820.] HAWKESWORTH. 545 

ingratitude, treachery and rebellion. By the imputation of 
these vices, a child becomes the object of indignation and resent- 
ment: indignation and resentment in the breast, therefore, of the 
parent, are necessarily excited : and there can be no doubt, but 
that these are species of hatred. But if the child is considered 
as still retaining the endearing softness of filial affection, as still 
longing for reconciliation, and profaning the rites of marriage 
with tears ; as having been driven from the path of duty, only 
by the violence of passions which none have always resisted, 
and which many have indulged with much greater turpitude; 
the same object that before excited indignation and resentment, 
will now be regarded with pity, and pity is a species of love. 

Those, indeed, who resent this breach of filial duty with im- 
placability, though perhaps it is the only one of which the 
offender has been guilty, demonstrate that they are without 
natural affection ; and that they would have prostituted their 
offspring, if not to lust, yet to affections which are equally vile 
and sordid, the thirst of gold, or the cravings of ambition : for 
he can never be thought to be sincerely interested in the felicity 
of his child, who, when some of the means of happiness are 
lost by indiscretion, suffers his resentment to take away the rest. 

Among friends, sallies of quick resentment are extremely 
frequent. Friendship is a constant reciprocation of benefits, to 
which the sacrifice of private interest is sometimes necessary : 
it is common for each to set too much value upon those which 
he bestows, and too little upon those which he receives; this 
mutual mistake in so important an estimation, produces mutual 
charges of unkindness and ingratitude; each^perhaps, professes 
himself ready to forgive, but neither will condescend to be for- 
given. Pride, therefore, still increases the enmity which it 
began ; the friend is considered as selfish, assuming, injurious, 
and revengeful; he consequendy becomes an object of hatred; 
and while he is thus considered, to love him is impossible. 
But thus to consider him, is at once a folly and a fault ; each 
ought to reflect, that he is, at least in the opinion of the other, 
incurring the crimes that he imputes ; that the foundation of 
their enmity is no more than a mistake ; and that this mistake 
is the effect of weakness or vanity, which is common to all 
mankind: the character of both would then assume a very 
different aspect, love would again be excited by the return of 
its object, and each would be impatient to exchange acknow- 
ledgments, and recover the felicity which was so near being 
lost. 
35 



546 HAWKESWORTH. [gEORGE III. 

But if, after we have admitted an acquaintance to our bosom 
as a friend, it should appear that we had mistaken his character; 
if he should betray our confidence, and use the knowledge of 
our affairs, which perhaps he obtained by offers of service, to 
effect our ruin : if he defames us to the world, and adds perjury 
to falsehood ; we may still consider him in such circumstances 
as will incline us to fulfil the precept, and to regard him without 
the rancor of hatred or the fury of revenge. 

Every character, however it may deserve punishment, excites 
hatred only in proportion as it appears to be malicious ; and 
pure malice has never been imputed to human beings. The 
wretch, who has thus deceived and injured us, should be con- 
sidered as having ultimately intended, not evil to us, but good 
to himself. It should also be remembered, that he has mistaken 
the means ; that he has forfeited the friendship of Him whose 
favor is better than life, by the same conduct which forfeited 
ours ; and that to whatever view he sacrificed our temporal 
interest, to that also he sacrificed his own hope of immortality ; 
that he is now seeking felicity which he can never find, and 
incurring punishment that will last for ever. And how much 
better than this wretch is he, in whom the contemplation of his 
condition can excite no pity? Surely if such an enemy hun- 
gers, we may, without suppressing any passion, give him food; 
for who that sees a criminal dragged to execution, for whatever 
crime, would refuse him a cup of cold water ? 

On the contrary, he whom God has forgiven must neces- 
sarily become amiable to man: to consider his character without 
prejudice or partiality, after it has been changed by repentance, 
is to love him ; and impartially to consider it, is not only our 
duty, but our interest. 

Thus may we love our enemies, and add a dignity to our 
nature of which pagan virtue had no conception. But if to 
love our enemies is the glory of a Christian, to treat others with 
coldness, neglect, and malignity, is rather the reproach of a 
fiend than a man. Unprovoked enmity, the frown of unkind- 
ness, and the menaces of oppression, should be far from those 
who profess themselves to be followers of Him who in his life 
went about doing good; who instantly healed a wound that was 
given in his defence ; and who, when he was fainting in his last 
agony, and treated with mockery and derision, conceived at 
once a prayer and an apology for his murderers : " Father, for* 
give them, they know not what they do." 



1760-1820.] HAWKESWORTH. 547 



CARAZAX, THE MERCHANT OF BAGDAD.^ 

Carazan, the merchant of Bagdad, was eminent throughout 
all the East for his avarice and his wealth : his origin was ob- 
scure as that of the spark which by the collision of steel and 
adamant is struck out of darkness ; and the patient labor of per- 
severing diligence alone had made him rich. It was remem- 
bered, that when he was indigent he was thought to be generous ; 
and he was still acknowledged to be inexorably just. But 
whether in his dealings with men he discovered a perfidy which 
tempted him to put his trust in gold, or whether in proportion 
as he accumulated wealth he discovered his own importance to 
increase, Carazan prized it more as he used it less, he gradu- 
ally lost the inclination to do good, as he acquired the power: 
and as the hand of time scattered snow upon his head, the freez- 
ing influence extended to his bosom. 

But though the door of Carazan was never opened by hospi- 
tality, nor his hand by compassion, yet fear led him constantly to 
the mosque at the stated hours of prayer; he performed all the 
rites of devotion with the most scrupulous punctuality, and had 
thrice paid his vows at the Temple of the Prophet. That devo- 
tion which arises from the Love of God, and necessarily includes 
the Love of Man, as it connects gratitude with beneficence, and 
exalts that which was moral to divine, confers new dignity upon 
goodness, and is the object not only of affection but reverence. 
On the contrary, the devotion of the selfish, whether it be 
thought to avert the punishment which every one wishes to be 
inflicted, or to insure it by the complication of hypocrisy with 
guilt, never fails to excite indignation and abhorrence. Carazan, 
therefore, when he had locked his door, and turning round with 
a look of circumspective suspicion, proceeded to the mosque, 
was followed by every eye with silent malignity ; the poor sus- 
pended their supplication when he passed by; and though he 
was known by every man, yet no man saluted him. 

Such had long been the life of Carazan, and such was the 
character which he had acquired, when notice was given by 
proclamation, that he was removed to a magnificent building in 
the centre of the city, that his table should be spread for the 
public, and that the stranger sliould be welcome to his bed. 
The multitude soon rushed like a torrent to his door, where 
they beheld him distributing bread to the hungry and apparel 

' Adventurer, No. 13:2, 



548 HAWKESWORTH. [gEORGE III. 

to the naked, his eye softened with compassion, and his cheek 
glowing with delight. Every one gazed with astonishment at 
the prodigy; and the murmur of innumerable voices increasing 
like the sound of approaching thunder, Carazan beckoned with 
his hand ; attention suspended the tumult in a moment, and he 
thus gratified the curiosity which had procured him audience. 

" To Him who touches the mountains and they smoke, the 
Almighty and the Most Merciful, be everlasting honor ! He has 
ordained sleep to be the minister of instruction, and his visions 
have reproved me in the night. As I was sitting alone in my 
harem, with my lamp burning before me, computing the pro- 
duct of my merchandize, and exulting in the increase of my 
wealth, I fell into a deep sleep, and the hand of Him who dwells 
in the third Heaven was upon me. I beheld the Angel of death 
coming forward like a whirlwind, and he smote me before I 
could deprecate the blow. At the same moment I felt myself 
lifted from the ground, and transported with astonishing rapidi- 
ty, through the regions of the air. The earth was contracted 
to an atom beneath ; and the stars glowed round me with a 
lustre that obscured the sun. The gate of Paradise was now 
in sight ; and I was intercepted by a sudden brightness which 
no human eye could behold : the irrevocable sentence was now 
to be pronounced ; my day of probation was past : and from the 
evil of my life nothing could be taken away, nor could any 
thing be added to the good. When I reflected that my lot for 
eternity was cast, which not all the powers of nature could 
reverse, my confidence totally forsook me ; and while I stood 
trembling and silent, covered with confusion and chilled with 
horror, I was thus addressed by the radiance that flamed be- 
fore me. 

" 'Carazan, thy worship has not been accepted ; because it 
was not prompted by Love of God ; neither can thy righteous- 
ness be rewarded, because it was not produced by Love of 
Man : for thy own sake only hast thou rendered to every man 
his due ; and thou hast approached the Almighty only for thy- 
self. Thou hast not looked up with gratitude nor around thee 
w^ith kindness. Around thee, thou hast, indeed, beheld vice 
and folly ; but if vice and folly could justify thy parsimony, 
would they not condemn the bounty of Heaven ? If not upon 
the foolish and the vicious, where shall the sun diffuse his light, 
or the clouds distil their dew ? Where shall the lips of the 
Spring breathe fragrance, or the hand of Autumn diffuse plenty ? 
Remember, Carazan, that thou hast shut compassion from thine 
heart, and grasped thy treasures with a hand of iron : thou hast 



1760-1820.] HAWKESWORTH. 549 

lived for thyself; and, therefore, henceforth for ever thou shalt 
subsist alone. From the light of Heaven, and from the society 
of all beings, shalt thou be driven ; solitude shall protract the 
lingering hours of eternity, and darkness aggravate the horrors 
of despair.' At this moment I was driven by some secret and 
irresistible power through the glowing system of creation, and 
passed innumerable worlds in a moment. As I approached the 
verge of nature, I perceived the shadows of total and boundless 
vacuity deepen before me, a dreadful region of eternal silence, 
solitude, and darkness ! Unutterable horror seized me at the 
prospect, and this exclamation burst from me with all the vehe- 
mence of desire : Oh ! that I had been doomed for ever to the 
common receptacle of impenitence and guilt! their society 
would have alleviated the torment of despair, and the rage of 
fire could not have excluded the comfort of light. Or if I had 
been condemned to reside in a comet, that would return but 
once in a thousand years to the regions of light and life ; the 
hope of these periods, however distant, would cheer me in the 
dread interval of cold and darkness, and the vicissitudes would 
divide eternity into time. Vv'hile this thought passed over my 
mind, I lost sight of the remotest star, and the last glimmering 
of light was quenched in utter darkness. The agonies of de- 
spair every moment increased, as every moment augmented my 
distance from the last habitable world. I reflected with intole- 
rable anguish, that when ten thousand thousand years had car- 
ried me beyond the reach of all but that Power who fills 
infinitude, I should still look forward into an immense abyss of 
darkness, through v/hich I should still drive without succor 
and without society, farther and farther still, for ever and for 
ev^r. I then stretched out my hand towards the regions of 
existence, with an emotion that awaked me. Thus have I been 
taught to estimate society, like every other blessing, by its loss. 
My heart is warmed to liberality ; and I am zealous to com- 
municate the happiness which I feel, to those from whom it is 
derived ; for the society of one wretch, whom in the pride of 
prosperity I would have spurned from my door, would, in the 
dreadful solitude to which I was condemned, have been more 
highly prized than the gold of Afric, or the gems of Golconda." 
At this reflection upon his dream, Carazan became suddenly 
silent, and looked upward in ecstacy of gratitude and devotion. 
The multitude were struck at once with the precept and ex- 
ample; and the caliph, to whom the event was related, that he 
might be liberal beyond the power of gold, commanded it to be 
recorded for the benefit of posterity. 



550 HAWKESWORTH. [gEORGE III. 



A LESSON FROM THE FLIGHT OF TIME/ 

The hour is hastening, in which, whatever praise or censure 
I have acquired by these compositions, if they are remembered 
at all, will be remembered with equal indifference, and the 
tenor of them only will afford me comfort. Time, who is im- 
patient to date my last paper, will shortly moulder the hand 
that is now writing it in the dust, and still the breast that now 
throbs at the reflection : but let not this be read as something 
that relates only to another ; for a few years only can divide 
the eye that is now reading from the hand that has written. 
This awful truth, however obvious, and however reiterated, is yet 
frequently forgotten ; for, surely, if we did not lose our remem- 
brance, or at least our sensibility, that view would always pre- 
dominate in our lives, which alone can afford us comfort when 
we die. 

The following little poem, composed but a month before his death, and 
dictated to Mrs. Hawkesworth before he rose in the morning, will prove 
how vividly he felt, at that period, the consolations arising from dependence 
on the mercy of his God. 



In Sleep's serene oblivion laid, 

I safely pass'd the silent night ■ 
At once I see the breaking shade, 

And drink again the morning light. 

New-born — I bless the waking hour, 

Once more, with awe, rejoice to be; 
My conscious soul resumes her power, 

And springs, my gracious God, to thee. 

O, guide me through the various maze 
My doubtful feet are doom'd to tread j 

And spread Thy shield's protecting blaze^ 
When dangers press around my head. 

A deeper shade will soon impend, 

A deeper sleep my eyes oppress ; 
Yet still Thy strength shall me defend, 

Thy goodness still shall deign to bless. 

That deeper shade shall fade away, 

That deeper sleep shall leave my eyes ; 

Thy light shall give eternal day ! 
Thy love the rapture of the skies! 

The concluding paragraph of tie ! tst number of the Adventurer. 



1760-1820.] GOLDSMITH. 551 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 1728—1774. 

This distinguished poet, novelist, historian, and essayist, was born at 
Pallas, in the County of Longford, on the lOih of November, 1728. His 
father was a clergyman, and held the living of Kilkenny West, in the County 
of Westmeath. After studying tlie classics at two or three private schools, 
he entered Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizer,' in his fifteenth year. Here 
he was idle, extravagant, and occasionally insubordinate; though we ought 
in justice to say that a most injudicious and passionate tutor, a Mr. Wil- 
der, should be held partly responsible for the unsatisfactory nature of Gold- 
smith's college career. 

About the time of his leaving the university his father died, ^ but his uncle, 
the Rev. Thomas Contarine, who had already borne the principal part of the 
expenses of his education, amply supplied the father's place. Disappointed 
in one or two plans that he had marked out for him, he determined to send 
him to London, to study the law, at the Temple, But stopping at Dublin 
on his way, he lost in gambling, the sum that had been given him for the 
expenses of his journey, and returned home penniless . The kindness of his 
uncle was not yet exhausted, and he sent him to Edinburgh to study medi- 
cine, where he arrived at the close of the year 1752. Here he remained 
about eighteen months, when, in consequence of becoming security to a con- 
siderable amount for a classmate, he was obliged to quit the city abruptly, 
and sailed for Leyden. Here he studied about a year, and then set out to 
make the tour of Europe on foot ; having with him, it is said, only one clean 
shirt, and no money, and trusting to his wits for support.^ By various expe- 
dients he Vv^orked his way through Flanders, parts of France and Germany, 
Switzerland, (where he composed part of" The Traveller,") and the North 

^ See Note 2, on page So. 

^ " To this very amiable father, the son, by his power in the delineation of 
character, has given celebrity in three of his sketches; one in the ' Citizen of 
the World' (Letter 27th) ; a second in Dr. Primrose, in the < Vicar of Wake- 
field ;' and a third, as the family always stated, in reference to his spiritual 
character, in the Preacher in the ' Deserted Village.' Each has peculiarities 
that distinguish it from the other, yet touched so skilfully, that with some 
variation, they cannot be said to offer a contradiction." — Prior. 

^ The following passage in the " Vicar of Wakefield" is supposed to de- 
scribe his own travels : " I had some knowledge of music, and now turned 
what was once my amusement into a present means of subsistence. When- 
ever I approached a peasant's house towards night-fall, I played one of my 
most merry tunes, and that procured me not only a lodging, but subsistence 
for the next day." So also the lines in " The Traveller," in the picture ot 
the Swiss, 

** And haply, too, some pilgrim thither led. 
With many a tale repays the nightly bed." 

And also in the picture of France, 

" How often have I led thy sportive choir 
With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire ?" &c. 



552 GOLDSMITH. [gEORGE III. 

of Italy, and returned to London in the autumn of 1756, with an empty 
pocket, indeed, but with a mind enriched by observations of foreign coun- 
tries, which he has so admirably expressed in that charming poem — " The 
Traveller." 

After trying various means of a professional character for support, he re* 
solved to depend upon his pen ; and in April, 1757, made an engagement 
with Mr. Griffiths, the proprietor of the Monthly Review, to write for that 
journal, for a salary, and his board and lodging in the proprietor's house. 
At the end of seven or eight months, this engagement was given up by 
mutual consent, and Goldsmith went into private lodgings, to finish his 
"Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe," which was 
pubUshed in 1759. His next publication was " The Bee," a series of Essays 
on a variety of subjects, published weekly, which, for want of support, ter- 
minated with the eighth number, Nov. 24, 1759. Though neglected at 
their first appearance, yet, when known, some time after, to be from the same 
pen as *' The Traveller," and the " Vicar of Wakefield," they were very 
generally read and admired. Such is the world; withholding from unknown 
and unhonored genius that praise which it lavishes when needed not. 

In 1760, he published his " Letters of a Citizen of the World,"^ which 
were very generally read and as generally admired ; and have long taken their 
stand in the list of English classics. His next work was his celebrated 
novel, " The Vicar of Wakefield," which, though finished in 1763, was not 
pubhshed till 1766, when his " Traveller" had established his fame. But 
it no sooner appeared than it secured the warmest friends among every de- 
scription of readers; with the old by the purity of its moral lessons, and with 
the young by the interest of the story. Its great charm is its close adherence 
to nature; nature in its commendable, not in its vicious points of view. 
" The Primrose family is a great creation of genius : such a picture of warm- 
hearted simpUcity, mingled with the little foibles and weaknesses common 
to the best specimens of humanity, that we find nothing like it in the whole 
range of fiction. "^ 

^ These Letters purported to be written by a Chinese philosopher, who, in 
travelling through Europe, for the purpose of examining the manners and 
customs of the various nations, fixed his residence for some time in England, 
for the purpose of describing the manners of its people. 

^ Prior, vol. ii. p. 111. " We read the ' Vicar of Wakefield' in youth and 
in age, — we return to it again and again, and bless the memory of an author 
who contrives so well to reconcile us to human nature." — Sir V/alter Scott. 

" The irresistible charm this novel possesses, evinces how much may be 
done without the aid of extravagant incident, to excite the imagination and 
interest the feelings. Few productions of this kind afford greater amusement 
in tlie perusal, and still fewer inculcate more impressive lessons of m.orality. 
Though wit and humor abound in every page, yet in the whole volume there 
is not one thought injurious in its tendency, nor one sentiment that can offend 
the chastest ear. Its language, in the words of an elegant writer, is what 
' angels might have heard, and virgins told.' " — Washington Irving. 

An interesting anecdote relative to this novel, told by Boswell in his Life of 
Johnson, and which has been illustrated by a most beautiful engraving, may 
here be repeated. " I received one morning," says Johnson, " a message 



1760-1820.] GOLDSMITH. 553 

In December, 1764, was published " The Traveller," the earliest of his 
productions to which Goldsmith prefixed his name. Dr. Johnson was the 
first to introduce it to the public, in a notice in the Critical Review, closing 
his remarks with these words : " Such is the poem on which we now con- 
gratulate the public, as on a production to which, since the death of Pope, it 
will not be easy to find any thing equal." It is hardly necessary to say 
how perfectly this sentiment has been universally concurred in ; for few 
poems in the English language have been more deservedly popular. In 1765 
he published his ballad of the "Hermit," and engaged in other works for 
the booksellers, to supply his immediate wants. In 1768 appeared his 
comedy of " The Good-Natured Man," which had not much success; but 
in the next year the "Deserted Village" was given to the public, which 
gave him a still higher rank, and still greater celebrity as a poet.* In the 
same year he entered into engagements for writing his histories of E.ome, 
Greece, and England. 

Two years after, he appeared the second time as a dramatic author, and 
with very great success. Dr. Johnson said of "She Stoops to Conquer," 
that he knew of no comedy for many years that had so much exhilarated an 
audience, that had answered the great end of comedy — making an audience 
merry. One of his last publications was a " History of the Earth, and Ani- 
mated Nature," which appeared in 1774, and for which he received the sum 
of eight hundred and fifty pounds; but such was his improvidence that his 
money was gone almost as soon as received. A tale of distress would take 
from him his last penny. His affairs, in consequence, became very much 
deranged, and his circumstances, preying upon his mind, are supposed to have 
accelerated his death, which occurred on the 4ih of April, 1774. 

" Thus termniated the life of an admirable writer and estimable man at 
the early age of forty-nve, when his powers were in full vigor, and much was 
to be expected from their exertion. The shock to his friends appeals to have 
been great from the unexpected loss of one whose substantial virtues, with 
all his foibles and singularities, they had learned to value. Burke, on hear- 

from poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as it was not in his 
power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. 
I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly 
went as soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him 
for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that he had 
already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of jMadeira, and a glass 
before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm, and 
began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated. He then 
told me that he had a novel ready for the press, \vhich he produced to me. I 
looked into it, and saw its merit ; told the landlady I should soon return ; and 
having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith 
the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a 
high tone for having used him so ill." 

' " The ' Deserted Village' has an endearing locality, and introduces us to 
beings with whom the imagination contracts an intimate friendship. Fiction 
in poetry is not the reverse of truth, but her soft and enchanted resemblance ; 
and this ideal beauty of nature has been seldom united with so much sober 
ndelity as in the groups and scenery of the ' Deserted Village.' '" — Campbell. 



554 GOLDSMITH. foEORGE III. 

ing it, burst into tears; Sir Joshua Reynolds relinquished painting for the 
day, — a very unusual forbearance; and Dr. Johnson, though little prone to 
exhibit strong ennotions of grief, felt most sincerely on this occasion."^ 
Three months afterwards he thus wrote to Boswell: "Of poor dear Dr. 
Goldsmith there is little to be told more than the papers have made public. 
He died of a fever, I am afraid more violent from uneasiness of mind. He 
had raised money and squandered it, by every artifice of acquisition and 
folly of expense. But let not his frailties be remembered: he v^'as a very 
great man. "2 

To the merits of Goldsmith, as a writer, the testimony of critics almost 
innumerable might be adduced. But the following few lines from an admi- 
rable article by Sir Walter Scott, will suffice. "The wreath of Goldsmith 
is unsullied ; he wrote to exalt virtue and expose vice ; and he accomplished 
his task in a manner which raises him to the highest rank among British 
authors. We close his volume with a sigh, that such an author should 
have written so little from the stores of his own genius, and that he should 
have so prematurely been removed from the sphere of literature which he 
so highly adorned."^ 



ITALY. 

Far to the right where Apennine ascends, 
Bright as the Summer, Italy extends ; 

^ Prior, vol. ii. page 519. 

"^ " Here Fancy's favorite, Goldsmith sleeps, 
The Dunces smile, but Johnson weeps." 

St. Jameses Chronicle^ April 1th, 1774. 

3 Read the article on Goldsmith in the 3d vol. of Scott-s Prose Works : 
also, another in the 57th vol. of Quarterly Preview: also life, in Mrs. Bar- 
bauld's Lives of the British Novelists: also, Life and Works by Prior, 6 vols., 
one of the most valuable contributions to English literature of the present cen- 
tury. In Boswell's Johnson, Goldsmith is frequently mentioned, but not in 
such a manner as to do any justice to his character. How could it be ex- 
pected from such a man ? When the work was first published, Burke, much 
displeased that Goldsmith should be so undervalued in it, remarked to a lady, 
" What rational opinion, my dear madam, could you expect a lawyer to give 
of a poet?" Wilkes improved upon this, and remarked at a dinner, "A 
Scotch lawyer and an Irish poet I hold to be about as opposite as the anti- 
podes." Sir Joshua Reynolds also expressed his decided dissent from Bos- 
well's opinions ; and George Stevens, in his usual sarcastic spirit, remarked, 
*' Why, sir, it is not unusual for a man who has much genius to be censured 
by one who has none." And Sir Walter Scott remarked, " I wonder why 
Boswell so often displays a malevolent feeling towards Goldsmith. Rivalry 
for Johnson's good graces, perhaps." That Johnson's opinion was most 
favorable to Goldsmith, Boswell's own book testifies. Hear him. "Gold- 
smith was a man who, whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man 
could do. He deserved a place in Westminster Abbey; and every year he 
lived he would have deserved it more." Again : " Whether, indeed, we take 
him as a poet, as a comic writer, or as an historian, he stands in the first 
class." 



1760-1820.] GOLDSMITH. 555 

Its uplands sloping deck the mountain's side, 
Woods over woods in gay theatric pride ; 
While oft some temple's mould'ring tops between 
With venerable grandeur mark the scene. 

Could nature's bounty satisfy the breast, 
The sons of Italy were surely blest. 
Whatever fruits in different climes were found, 
That proudly rise, or humbly court the ground ; 
Whatever blooms in torrid tracts appear. 
Whose bright succession decks the varied year; 
Whatever sweets salute the northern sky 
With vernal lives, that blossom but to die ; 
These, here disporting, own the kindred soil, 
Nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil ; 
While sea-born gales their gelid wings expand 
To winnow fragrance round the smiling land. 

But small the bliss that sense alone bestows. 
And sensual bliss is all the nation knows. 
In florid beauty groves and fields appear, 
Man seems the only growth that dwindles here. 
Contrasted faults through all his manners reign: 
Though poor, luxurious ; though submissive, vain ; 
Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue; 
And e'en in penance planning sins anew. 
All evils here contaminate the mind, 
That opulence departed leaves behind ; 
For wealth was theirs, not far remov'd the date, 
When commerce proudly flourish'd through the state; 
At her command the palace learn'd to rise. 
Again the long-fall'n column sought the skies ; 
The canvas glow'd beyond e'en Nature warm. 
The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form : 
Till, more unsteady than the southern gale. 
Commerce on other shores display'd her sail; 
While naught remained of all that riches gave, 
But towns unmann'd, and lords without a slave; 
And late the nation found with fruitless skill 
Its former strength was but plethoric ill. 

Yet, still the loss of wealth is here supplied 
By arts, the splendid wrecks of former pride ; 
From these the feeble heart and long-fallen mind 
An easy compensation seem to find. 
Here may be seen, in bloodless pomp array'd, 
The paste-board triumph and the cavalcade ; 
Processions form'd for piety and love, 
A mistress or a saint in every grove. 
By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd, 
The sports of children satisfy the child ;^ 

'■ Either Sir Joshua Reynolds, or a mutual friend who communicated the 
story to him, calling, one day, at Goldsmith's lodgings, opened the door with- 
out ceremony, and discovered him, not in meditation, or in the throes of 
poetic birth, but in the boyish office of teaching a favorite dog to sit upright 



556 GOLDSMITH. [gEORGE III 

Each nobler aim, represt by long control, 

iS^ow sinks at last, or feebly mans the soul ; 

While low delights, succeeduig fast behind, 

In happier meanness occupy the mind : 

As in those domes, where Csesars once bore sway, 

Defac'd by time and tott'ring in decay. 

There in the ruin, heedless of the dead, 

The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed : 

And, wondering man could want the larger pile, 

Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile. 

From the Traveller. 



FRANCE. 

To kmder skies, where gentler manners reign, 
I turn ; and France displays her bright domain. 
Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease, 
Pleas"d with thyself, whom all the world can please, 
How often have I led thy sportive choir, 
With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire? 
Where shading elms along the margin grew, 
And freshen'd from the wave the zeph}T flew ; 
And haply, though my harsh touch falt"ring still, 
But mock'd all tmie. and marr'd the dancer's skill; 
Yet would the village praise my wonderous power, 
And dance, forgetful of the noon-tide hour/ 
Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days 
Have led their children through the muihful maze, 
And the gay grand sire, skill'd in gestic lore. 
Has frisk'd beneath the burthen of threescore. 

So blest a life these thoughtless realms display, 
Thus idly busy rolls their world away : 

upon its haunches, or. as it is commonly said, to beg. Occasionally he 
glanced his eyes over his desk, and occasionally shook his finger at the un- 
Avilling pupil, in order to make him retain his position; while on the page 
before" him was written that couplet, with the ink of the second line still wet, 
from the description of Italy: — 

" By sports like these are all their cares beguiled. 
The sports of children satisfy the child. 
The sentiment seemed so appropriate to the employment, that the visitor could 
not refrain from giving vent to his surprise in a strain of banter, which was 
received with characteristic good humor, and the admission at once made, 
that the amusement in which he had been engaged had given birth to the 
idea. 

^ " I had some knowledge of music," says George Primrose, in the Vicar 
of Wakefield, "with a tolerable voice, and now turned what was my amuse- 
ment into a present means of subsistence. I passed among the harmless 
peasants of Flanders, and among such of the French as were poor enough to 
be very merry; for I ever found them sprightly in proportion to their wants. 
Whenever I approached a peasant's house towards night-fall,! played one of 
my most merry tunes ; and that procured me not only a lodgicg, but sub- 
sistence for the next day." 



1760-1820.] GOLDSMITH. 557 

Theirs are those arts that mhid to mind endear, 

For honor forms the social temper here. 

Honor, that praise which real merit gains. 

Or e'en imaginary worth obtains, 

Here passes current ; paid from hand to hand, 

It shifts in splendid traffick round the land: 

From courts, to camps, to cottages it strays, 

And all are taught an avarice of praise ; 

They please, are pleas'd. they give to get esteem, 

Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem/ 

But while this softer art their bliss supplies, 
It gives their follies also room to rise ; 
For praise too clearly lov'd, or warmly sought, 
Enfeebles all internal strength of thought; 
And the weak soul, within itself unblest. 
Leans for all pleasure on another's breast. 
Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art. 
Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart; 
Here vanity assumes her pert grimace. 
And trims her robe of frieze with copper lace ; 
Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer, 
To boast one splendid banquet once a year ; 
The mind still turns where shifting fashion draws, 
Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause. 

From the Traveller. 



BRITAIN. 



-My genius spreads her wing, 



And flies where Britain courts the western spring; 

Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride, 

And brighter streams than fam'd Hydaspes glide, 

There all around the gentlest breezes stray. 

There gentle music melts on every spray ; 

Creation's mildest charms are there combin'd, 

Extremes are only in the master's mind ! 

Stern o"er each bosom Pteason holds her state, 

With daring aims irregularly great ; 

Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, 

I see the lords o[ human kind pass by ; 

Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band. 

By forms unfashion'd fresh from Nature's hand; 

Fierce in their native hardiness of soul, 

True to imagin'd right above control, 

While e'en the peasant lx)asts these rights to scan, 

And learns to venerate himself as man.2 

' " There is, perhaps, no couplet in English rhyme more perspicuously 
condensed than those two lines of The Traveller, in which the author de- 
scribes the at once flattering, vain, and happy character of the French." — 
Campbell. 

^ " We talked of Goldsmith's Traveller, of which Dr. Johnson spoke highly ; 



558 GOLDSMITH. [gEORGE III. 

Thine, Freedom, thine the blessings pictur'd here, 
Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear ; 
Too blest, indeed, were such without alloy, 
But foster'd e"en by Freedom, ills annoy : 
That independence Britons prize too high, 
Keeps man from man, and breaks the social tie; 
The self-dependent lordlings stand alone, 
All claims that bind and sweeten life unkxiowxi ; 
Here by the bonds of nature feebly held, 
blinds combat minds, repelling and repell'd. 
Ferments arise, imprison"d factions roar, 
Represt ambition struggles round her shore, 
Till; over-^rrought. the general system feels 
Its motions stop, or fieazy fire the wheels. 

Xor this the worst. As nature's ties decay. 
As duty, love, and honor fail to sway. 
Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law. 
Still gather strength, and force unwilling aAve. 
Hence all obedience bows to these alone, 
And talent sinks, and merit weeps unkno\\'n : 
Till time may come, when, stript of all her charms, 
The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms, 
Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame, 
Where kings have toild, and poets ^VTOte for fame, 
One sink of level avarice shall lie, 
And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonor'd die. 

From the Traveller. 



THE TILLAGE PREACHER. 

Xear yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd, 
And still where many a garden flower grows wild; 
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, 
The village preacher's modest mansion rose. 
A man he was, to all the country dear, 
And passing rich with forty pounds a year : 
Remote from toAvns he ran his godly race, 
Xor e'er had chang'd, nor wish'd to change his place ; 
Unskilful he to fawn, or seek for power. 
By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour : 
Far other aims his heart had learn'd to prize, 
-More bent to raise the ^vretched than to rise. 
His house ^vas known to all the vagrant train, 
He chid their wand'rings, but reliev'd their pain : 
The long-remember'd beggar was his guest, 
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast ; 
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud, 
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allowed ; 

and, while I was helping him on with his great-coat, he repeatedly quoted 
from it the character of the British nation; which he did with such' energy, 

that the tear started in his eve,'" — Boswell's Johnson. 



1760-1820.] GOLDSMITH. 559 

The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, 
Sate by his fire, and talk'd the night away ; 
Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done. 
Shouldered his crutch, and show'd how fields were won. 
Pleasxl with his guests, the good man learn"d to glow, 
And quite forgot their vices in their woe ; 
Careless their merits, or their faults to scan. 
His pity gave ere charity began. 

Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, 
And e'en his failings lean'd to Virtue's side ; 
But in his daty prompt at every call, 
He watch'd and wept, he pray"d and felt, for all. 
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries. 
To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies; 
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay, 
Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way. 

Beside the bed where parting life was laid, 
And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismay 'd, 
The rev'rend champion stood. At his control, 
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul ; 
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, 
And his last falt'ring accents whisper"d praise. 

At church, with meek and unaffected grace, 
His looks adorn'd the venerable place ; 
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, 
And fools, who came to scoff, remain'd to pray. 
The service past, around the pious man, 
With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran; 
E'en children foUow'd with endearing wile. 
And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile. 
His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest, 
Their welfare pleas'd him, and their cares distrest; 
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, 
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. 
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 

From the Deserted Village. 



AN ELEGY ON THE GLORY OF HER SEX, MRS. MARY BLAIZE, 

Good people all, with one accord, 

Lament for Madam Blaize, 
Who never wanted a good word — 

From those who spoke her praise. 

The needy seldom pass'd her door, 

And always found her kind ; 
She freely lent to all the poor, — 

Who left a pledge behind. 



560 GOLDSMITH. [^GEORGE III. 

She strove the neighborhood to please, 

With manners wondrous winning; 
And never followed wicked ways, 

Unless when she was sinning. 

At church, in silks and satins new, 

With hoop of monstrous size ; 
She never slumber"d in her pew, — 

But when she shut her eyes. 

Her love was sought, I do aver, 

By twenty beaux and more ; 
The king himself has follow"d her. — 

When she has walk'd before. 

But now her wealth and finery fled, 

Her hangers on cut short all : 
The doctors found, when she wa^ dead. — 

Her last disorder mortal. 

Let us lament, in sorro^v sore, 

For Kent-street well may say, 
That had she lived a twelvemonth more. — 

She had not died to-day. 

But Goldsmith's prose is no less charming than his poetry. There are, in 
his essays entitled " The Chizen of the World," an ease and gracefulness of 
style, a chaste humor, a rich poetical fancy, and a nice observation of mea 
and manners, that render them truly " amine of lively and profound thought, 
happy imagery, and pure English."^ 



LIFE ENDEARED BY AGE. 

Age, that lessens the enjoyment of life, increases our desire 
of living. Those dangers which, in the vigor of youth, we 
had learned to despise, assume new terrors as we grow old. 
Our caution increasing as our years increase, fear becomes at 
last the prevailing passion of the mind, and the small remainder 
of life is taken up in useless efforts to keep off our end, or pro- 
vide for a continued existence. 

Strange contradiction in our nature, and to which even the 
wise are liable! If I should judge of that part of life which 
lies before me by that which I have already seen, the prospect 
is hideous. Experience tells me that my past enjoyments have 
brought no real felicity, and sensation assures me that those I 
have felt are stronger than those which are yet to come. Yet 

- At a dinner at Sir Joshua Reynolds', when sonie unkind remark was made 
of Goldsmith, Johnson broke out warmly in his defence, and in the course of 
a spirited eulogium, said, "Is there a man, sir, now, who can pea an essay 
with such ease and elegance as Dr. Goldsmith ?" 



1760-1820.] GOLDSMITH. 561 

experience and sensation in vain persuade ; hope, more power- 
ful than either, dresses out the distant prospect in fancied 
beauty ; some happiness, in long perspective, still beckons me 
to pursue, and, like a losing gamester, every new disappoint- 
ment increases my ardor to continue the game. 

Whence, then, is this increased love of life, which grows 
upon us with our years ? whence comes it, that we thus make 
greater efforts to preserve our existence at a period when it 
becomes scarce worth the keeping ? Is it that nature, attentive 
to the preservation of mankind, increases our wishes to live, 
while she lessens our enjoyments ; and, as she robs the senses 
of every pleasure, equips imagination in the spoil ? Life would 
be insupportable to an old man who, loaded with infirmities, 
feared death no more than when in the vigor of manhood ; the 
numberless calamities of decaying nature, and the consciousness 
of surviving every pleasure, would at once induce him, with 
his own hand, to terminate the scene of misery ; but happily 
the contempt of death forsakes him at a time when it could 
only be prejudicial, and life acquires an imaginary value in 
proportion as its real value is no more. 

Our attachment to every object around us increases in gene- 
ral from the length of our acquaintance with it. " I would not 
choose," says a French philosopher, " to see an old post pulled 
up with which I had been long acquainted." A mind long 
habituated to a certain set of objects insensibly becomes fond 
of seeing them ; visits them from habit, and parts from them 
with reluctance. Hence proceeds the avarice of the old in 
every kind of possession ; they love the world and all that it 
produces ; they love life and all its advantages, not because it 
gives them pleasure, but because they have known it long. 

Chinvang the Chaste, ascending the throne of China, com- 
manded that all who were unjustly detained in prison during 
the preceding reigns should be set free. Among the number 
vi^ho came to thank their deliverer on this occasion there ap- 
peared a majestic old man, M^ho, falling at the emperor's feet, 
addressed him as follows : " Great father of China, behold a 
wretch, now eighty-five years old, who was shut up in a dun- 
geon at the age of twenty-two. I was imprisoned, though a 
stranger to crime, or without being even confronted by my 
accusers. I have now lived in solitude and darkness for more 
than fifty years, and am grown familiar with distress. As yet, 
dazzled with the splendor of that sun to which you have 
restored me, I have been wandering the streets to find some 
36 



562 GOLDSMITH. [gEORGE III. 

friend that would assist, or relieve, or remember me ; but my 
friends, my family, and relations are all dead, and I am forgot- 
ten. Permit me, then, O Chinvang, to wear out the wretched 
remains of life in my former prison ; the walls of my dungeon 
are to me more pleasing than the most splendid palace ; I have 
not long to live, and shall be unhappy except I spend the rest 
of my days where my youth was passed — in that prison from 
which you were pleased to release me." 

The old man's passion for confinement is similar to that we 
all have for life. We are habituated to the prison, we look 
round with discontent, are displeased with the abode, and yet 
the length of our captivity only increases our fondness for the 
ceil. The trees we have planted, the houses we have built, or 
the posterity we have begotten, all serve to bind us closer to 
earth, and imbitter our parting. Life sues the young like a 
new acquaintance ; the companion, as yet unexhausted, is at 
once instructive and amusing; its company pleases, yet for all 
this it is but little regarded. To us, who are declined in years, 
life appears like an old friend; its jests have been anticipated 
ill former conversation ; it has no new story to make us smile, 
no nev/ improvement with which to surprise, yet still we love 
it; destitute of every enjoyment, still we love it; husband the 
wasting treasure with increased frugality, and feel all the 
poignancy of anguish in the fatal separation. 

Sir Philip Mordaunt was young, beautiful, sincere, brave, an 
Englishman. He had a complete fortune of his own, and the 
love of the king his master, which was equivalent to riches. 
Life opened all her treasures before him, and promised a long 
succession of future happiness. He came, tasted of the enter- 
tainment, but v/as disgusted even at the beginning. He pro- 
fessed an aversion to living, was tired of walking round the 
same circle ; had tried every enjoyment, and found them all 
grow^ weaker at every repetition. " If life be in youth so dis- 
pleasing," cried he to himself, " what will it appear when age 
comes on ? if it be at present indifferent, sure it will then be 
execrable." This thought imbittered every reflection ; till at 
last, with all the serenity of perverted reason, he ended the 
debate with a pistol ! Had this self-deluded man been apprised 
that existence grows more desirable to us the longer we exist, 
he would then have faced old age without shrinking; he would 
have boldly dared to live, and served that society by his future 
assiduity which he basely injured by his desertion. 

Citizen of the World, Letter LXXIII. 



1760-1820.] GOLDSMITH. 563 



A CITY NIGHT-PIECE. 

The clock has just struck two ; the expiring taper rises and 
sinks in the socket; the watchman forgets the hour in shimber; 
the laborious and the happy are at rest; and nothing wakes but 
meditation, guilt, revelry, and despair. The drunkard once 
more fills the destroying bowl ; the robber walks his midnight 
round; and the suicide lifts his guilty arm against his own 
sacred person. 

Let me no longer waste the night over the page of antiquity 
or the sallies of cotemporary genius, but pursue the solitary 
walk, where vanity, ever changing, but a few hours past walked 
before me — where she kept up the pageant, and now, like a 
froward child, seems hushed with her own importunities. 

What a gloom hangs all around ! The dying lamp feebly 
emits a yellow gleam ; no sound is heard but of the chiming 
clock or the distant watch-dog; all the busde of human pride 
is forgotten. An hour like this may well display the emptiness 
of human vanity. 

There will come a time when this temporary solitude will 
be made continual, and the city itself, like its inhabitants, fade 
away, and leave a desert in its room. 

What cities, as great as this, have once triumphed in existence, 
had their victories as great, joy as just and as unbounded, and, 
with short-sighted presumption, promised themselves immor- 
tality. Posterity can hardly trace the situation of some ; the 
sorrowful traveller wanders over the awful ruins of others ; 
and, as he beholds, he learns wisdom, and feels the transience 
of every sublunary possession. 

Here, he cries, stood their citadel, now grown over with 
weeds; there their senate house, but now the haunt of every 
noxious reptile. Temples and theatres stood here, now only 
an undistinguished heap of ruin. They are fallen, for luxury 
and avarice first made them feeble. The rewards of state were 
conferred on amusing, and not on useful members of society. 
Their riches and opulence invited the invaders, who, though at 
first repulsed, returned again, conquered by perseverance, and 
at last swept the defendants into undistinguished destruction. 

How few appear in those streets, which but some few hours 
ago were crowded ! And those who appear now no longer 
wear their daily mask, nor attempt to hide their lewdness or 
their misery. 

But who are those who make the streets their couch, and 



S64 GOLDSMITH. [gEORGE III. 

find a short repose from wretchedness at the doors of the opu- 
lent? These are strangers, wanderers, and orphans, whose 
circumstances are too humble to expect redress, and whose 
distresses are too great even for pity. Their wretchedness 
excites rather horror than pity. Some are without the cover- 
ing even of rags, and others emaciated with disease. The 
world has disclaimed them : society turns its back upon their 
distress, and has given them up to nakedness and hunger. 
These poor shivering females have once seen happier days, 
and been flattered into beauty. » 

Why, why was I born a man, and yet see the sufferings of 
wretches I cannot relieve ? Poor houseless creatures ! the 
world will give you reproaches, but will not give you relief. 
The slightest misfortunes of the great, the most imaginary un- 
easiness of the rich, are aggravated with all the power of elo- 
quence, and held up to engage our attention and sympathetic 
sorrow. The poor weep unheeded, persecuted by every subor- 
dinate species of tyranny ; and every law which gives others 
security becomes an enemy to them. 

Why was this heart of mine formed with so much sensi- 
bility ? or why was not my fortune adapted to its impulse ? 
Tenderness without a capacity of relieving, only makes the 
man who feels it more wretched than the object which sues 
for assistance. 

Citizen of the World, Letter CXVII. 



STORY OF ALCANDER AXD SEPTIMIUS. 

Athens, even long after the decline of the Roman Empire," still 
continued the seat of learning, politeness and wisdom. The- 
odoric, the Ostrogoth, repaired the schools which barbarity was 
suffering to fall into decay, and continued those pensions to men 
of learning, which avaricious governors had monopolized to 
themselves. 

In this city, and about this period, Alcander and Septimius 

^ This idea is repeated in the " Deserted Village." 

''Ah, turn thine eves. 

Where the poor houseless, shivering female lies. 
She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest, 
Has wept at tales of innocence distrest; 
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn ; 
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn. 
Now lost to all ; her friends, her virtue fled, 
Near her betraver's door she lavs her head." 



1760-1820.] GOLDSMITH. 565 

were fellow-students together. The one, the most subtle 
reasoner of all the Lyceum ; the other, the most eloquent 
speaker in the academic grove. Mutual admiration soon begot 
an acquaintance, and a similitude of disposition made them 
perfect friends. Their fortunes were nearly equal, and they 
were natives of the two most celebrated cities in the world : 
for Alcander was of Athens, Septimius came from Rome. 

In this mutual harmony they lived for some time together, 
when Alcander, after passing the first part of his youth in the 
indolence of philosophy, thought at length of entering into the 
busy world ; and as a step previous to this, placed his affections 
on Hypatia, a lady of exquisite beauty. The day of their in- 
tended nuptials was fixed; the previous ceremonies were per- 
formed ; and nothing now remained but her being conducted 
in triumph to the apartment of the intended bridegroom. 

An exultation in his own happiness, or his being unable to 
enjoy any satisfaction without making his friend Septimius a 
partner, prevailed upon him to introduce Hypatia to his fellow- 
student ; which he did with all the gayety of a man who found 
himself equally happy in friendship and love. But this was an 
interview fatal to the future peace of both : for Septimius no 
sooner saw her, but he was smitten with an involuntary pas- 
sion; and though he used every effort to suppress desires at 
once so imprudent and unjust, the emotions of his mind in a 
short time became so strong, that they brought on a fever, 
which the physicians judged incurable. 

During this illness, Alcander watched him with all the 
anxiety of fondness, and brought his mistress to join in those 
amiable offices of friendship. The sagacity of the physicians, 
by this means, soon discovered that the cause of their patient's 
disorder was love ; and Alcander, being apprised of their dis- 
covery, at length extorted a confession from the reluctant dying 
lover. 

It would but delay the narrative to describe the conflict 
between love and friendship in the breast of Alcander on this 
occasion ; it is enough to say, that the Athenians were at that 
time arrived at such refinement in morals, that every virtue was 
carried to excess. In short, forgetful of his own felicity, he 
gave up his intended bride in all her charms, to the young 
Roman. They were married privately by his connivance, and 
this unlooked-for change of fortune wrought as unexpected a 
change in the constitution of the now happy Septimius. In a 
few days he was perfectly recovered, and set out with his fair 
partner for Rome. Here, by an exertion of those talents 



566 GOLDSMITH. [gEORGE III. 

which he was so eminently possessed of, Septimius, in a few 
years, arrived at the highest dignities of the state, and was con- 
stituted the city judge, or praetor. 

In the mean time Alcander not only felt the pain of being 
separated from his friend and his mistress, but a prosecution 
was also commenced against him by the relations of Hypatia, 
for having basely given up his bride, as was suggested, for 
money. His innocence of the crime laid to his charge, and 
even his eloquence in his own defence, were not able to with- 
stand the influence of a powerful party. He was cast, and 
condemned to pay an enormous fine. However, being unable 
to raise so large a sum at the time appointed, his possessions 
w^ere confiscated, he himself was stripped of the habit of 
freedom, exposed as a slave in the market-place, and sold to 
the highest bidder. 

A merchant of Thrace becoming his purchaser, Alcander, 
with some other companions of distress, was carried into that 
region of desolation and sterility. His stated employment was 
to follow the herds of an imperious master, and his success in 
hunting was all that was allowed him to supply his precarious 
subsistence. Every morning waked him to a renewal of 
famine or toil, and every change of season served but to aggra- 
vate his unsheltered distress. After some years of bondage, 
however, an opportunity of escaping offered ; he embraced it 
with ardor ; so that travelling by night, and lodging in caverns 
by day, to shorten a long story, he at last arrived in Rome. 
The same day on which Alcander arrived, Septimius sat ad- 
ministering justice in the forum, whither our wanderer came, 
expecting to be instantly known, and publicly acknowledged 
by his former friend. Here he stood the whole day amongst 
the crowd, watching the eyes of the judge, and expecting to be 
taken notice of; but he was so much altered by a long succes- 
sion of hardships, that he continued unnoticed amongst the rest; 
and, in the evening, when he was going up to the praetor's 
chair, he was brutally repulsed by the attending lictors. The 
attention of the poor is generally driven from one ungrateful 
object to another; for night coming on, he now found himself 
under a necessity of seeking a place to lie in, and yet knew not 
where to apply. All emaciated, and in rags as he was, none 
of the citizens would harbor so much wretchedness ; and 
sleeping in the streets might be attended with interruption or 
danger : in short, he was obliged to take up his lodging in one 
of the tombs without the city, the usual retreat of guilt, poverty, 
and despair. In this mansion of horror, laying his head upon 



1760-1820.] GOLDSMITH. 567 

an inverted urn, he forgot his miseries for a while in sleep ; 
and found, on his flinty couch, more ease than beds of down 
can supply to the guilty. 

As he continued here, about midnight, two robbers came to 
make this cave their retreat; but happening to disagree about the 
division of their plunder, one of them stabbed the other to the 
heart, and left him weltering in blood at the entrance. In 
these circumstances he was found next morning dead at the 
mouth of the vault. This naturally inducing a further inquiry, 
an alarm was spread; the cave was examined; and Alcander 
was apprehended and accused of robbery and murder. The 
circumstances against him were strong, and the wretchedness 
of his appearance confirmed suspicion. Misfortune and he 
were now so long acquainted, that he at last became regardless 
of life. He detested a world where he had found only ingrati- 
tude, falsehood, and cruelty ; he was determined to make no 
defence ; and, thus lowering with resolution, he was dragged, 
bound with cords, before the tribunal of Septimius. As the 
proofs were positive against him, and he offered nothing in his 
own vindication, the judge was proceeding to doom him to a 
most cruel and ignominious death, when the attention of the 
multitude was soon divided by another object. The robber, 
who had been really guilty, was apprehended selling his 
plunder, and, struck with a panic, had confessed his crime. 
He was brought bound to the same tribunal, and acquitted 
every other person of any partnership in his guilt. Alcander's 
innocence therefore appeared, but the sullen rashness of his 
conduct remained a wonder to the surrounding multitude ; 
but their astonishment was still further increased when they 
saw their judge start from his tribunal to embrace the sup- 
posed criminal : Septimius recollected his friend and former 
benefactor, and hung upon his neck with tears of pity and of 
joy. Need the sequel be related ? Alcander was acquitted; 
shared the friendship and honors of the principal citizens of 
Rome ; lived afterwards in happiness and ease ; and left to be 
engraved on his tomb that no circumstances are so desperate, 
which Providence may not relieve. 

From No. 1 of the "^ee." 

The following paragraph is one of those gems in English Prose Literature, 
of which few authors, if any, afford a greater number than Goldsmith. It is 
in the latter part of a review, as severe as his good nature would allow, of 
Barrett's translation of Ovid's Epistles; to be found in the Critical Review 
of 1759. 



568 HUME. [gEORGE III. 

But let not the reader imagine we can find pleasure in thus 
exposing absurdities, which are too ludicrous for serious re- 
proof. While we censure as critics, we feel as men, and could 
sincerely wish that those whose greatest sin is, perhaps, the 
venial one of writing bad verses, would regard their failure in 
this respect as we do, not as faults, but foibles : they may be 
good and useful members of society without being poets. The 
regions of taste can be travelled only by a few, and even those 
often find indifferent accommodation by the way. Let such 

AS &AVE NOT GOT A PASSPORT FROM NATURE, BE CONTENT WITH 
HAPPINESS, AND LEAVE TO THE POET THE UNRIVALLED POSSES- 
SION OF HIS MISERY, HIS GARRET, AND HIS FAME. 



DAVID HUME, 1711—1776. 

David Hume, the celebrated Scotch historian, was born in Edinburgh in 
1711. He was designed for the law, but having no inclination for it, he ap- 
plied himself to mercantile pursuits, and in 1734 became clerk to a house in 
Bristol. He did not, however, continue long in that line, owing to his strong 
propensity to literature. He says in his autobiography, "I went over to 
France with a view of prosecuting my studies in a country retreat, and I 
then laid that plan of hfe which I have steadily and successfully pursued. I 
resolved to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of fortune ; to 
maintain, unimpaired, my independency, and to regard every object as con- 
temptible except the improvement of my talents in hterature." 

In 1738 he published his "Treatise of Human Nature," a metaphysical 
work, which met with a very indifferent reception. In 1742 appeared his 
" Moral Essays," which were a little better received. During the next ten 
years he published, his " Inquiry concerning Human Understanding," "Po- 
litical Discourses," and "Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals." 
While many of the principles of these works are to be reprobated, as compo- 
sitions they are a model of a perspicuous, and a highly finished style. In 
1754 he published the first volume of his " History of England," which he 
commenced with the House of Stuart. "The History of the House of 
Tudor" followed in 1759, and the two volumes containing the earUer English 
History, which completed the work, in 1761. While this work was in pro- 
gress, he gave to the world his " Natural History of Religion," which was 
attacked with just severity by Warburton and Hurd. After enjoying one 
or two offices of honor and profit, he retired to his native country in 1769, 
and died in 1776. 

As an author Hume is to be viewed in two ways, as an historian and as a 
philosopher. His history is written in an easy and animated style, but it is 
disfigured by partiahty, misrepresentation, and want of accuracy, for he 
could not tolerate the labor of research into original documents. As a philo- 



1760-1820.] HUME. 569 

sopher, though acute and ingenious, he is not profound : indeed he hardly 
deserves the name, inasmuch as he neglected all search after the highest 
of all wisdom, and exhibited none of that docility upon the subject of religion, 
which he himself would require of every one in order to make any attainment 
in any other science. Upon his death-bed scene, which is represented to 
have been light and trifling to a shocking degree, Dr. Johnson observes: 
" Hume owned he had never read the New Testament with attention. 
Here then was a man, who had been at no pains to inquire into the truth of 
rehgion, and had continually turned his mind the other way. It was not to 
be expected that the prospect of death should alter his way of thinking, unless 
God should send an angel to set him right. He had a vanity in being 
thought easy." 

ON DELICACY OF TASTE. 

Nothing is so improving to the temper as the study of the 
beauties either of poetry, eloquence, music, or painting. They 
give a certain elegance of sentiment to which the rest of man- 
kind are strangers. The emotions which they excite are soft 
and tender. They draw off the mind from the hurry of busi- 
ness and interest ; cherish reflection ; dispose to tranquillity ; 
and produce an agreeable melancholy, which, of all dispositions 
of the mind, is the best suited to love and friendship. 

In the second place, a delicacy of taste is favorable to love 
and friendship, by confining our choice to few people, and 
making us indifferent to the company and conversation of the 
greater part of men. You will seldom find that mere men of 
file world, whatever strong sense they may be endowed with, 
are very nice in distinguishing characters, or in marking those 
insensible differences and gradations which make one man pre- 
ferable to another. Any one that has competent sense is suffi- 
cient for their entertainment: they talk to him of their pleasure 
and affairs with the same frankness that they would to another*; 
and finding many who are fit to supply his place, they never 
feel any vacancy or want in his absence. But, to make use of 
the allusion of a celebrated French author, the judgment may 
be compared to a clock or watch where the most ordinary ma- 
chine is sufficient lo tell the hours, but the most elaborate alone 
can point out the minutes and seconds, and distinguish the 
smallest differences of time. One that has well digested his 
knowledge, both of books and men, has little enjoyment but in 
the company of a few select companions. He feels too sensibly 
how much all the rest of mankind fall short of the notions which 
he has entertained ; and his affections being thus confined within 
a narrow circle, no wonder he carries them further than if they 



570 HIJME, [^GEORGE III. 

were more general and undistinguished. The gayety and frolic 
of a bottle companion improves with him into a solid friendship ; 
and the ardors of a youthful appetite become an elegant passion. 

ON SIMPLICITY AND REFINEMENT. 

It is a certain rule that wit and passion are entirely incom- 
patible. When the affections are moved, there is no place for 
the imagination. The mind of man being naturally limited, it 
is impossible that all its faculties can operate at once ; and the 
more any one predominates, the less room is there for the 
others to exert their vigor. For this reason a greater degree 
of simplicity is required in all compositions where men, and 
actions, and passions are painted, than in such as consist of 
reflections and observations. And, as the former species of 
writing is the more engaging and beautiful, one may safely, 
upon this account, give the preference to the extreme of sim- 
plicity above that of refinement. 

We may also observe, that those compositions which we 
read the oftenest, and which every man of taste has got by 
heart, have the recommendation of simplicity, and have nothing 
surprising in the thought when divested of that elegance of 
expression and harmony of numbers with which it is clothed. 
If the merit of the composition lie in a point of wit, it may 
strike at first; but the mind anticipates the thought in the second 
perusal, and is no longer affected by it. When I read an epi- 
gram of Martial, the first line recalls the whole ; and I have no 
pleasure in repeating to myself what I know already. But each 
line, each word in Catullus, has its merit ; and I am never tired 
with the perusal of him. It is sufficient to run over Cowley 
once ; but Parnell, after the fiftieth reading, is as fresh as the 
first. Besides, it is with books as with women, where a cer- 
tain plainness of manner and of dress is more engaging than 
that glare of paint, and airs, and apparel, which may dazzle the 
eye but reaches not the affections. Terence is a modest and 
bashful beauty, to whom we grant everything, because he as- 
sumes nothing ; and whose purity and nature make a durable 
though not a violent impression on us. 

ON THE MIDDLE STATION OF LIFE. 

The moral of the following fable will easily discover itself 
without my explaining it. One rivulet meeting another, with 
whom he had been long united in strictest amity, with noisy 



1760-1820.] HUME. 571 

haughtiness and disdain thus bespoke him : — "What, brother! 
still in the same state ! Still low and creeping ! Are you not 
ashamed when you behold me, who, though lately in a like 
condition with you, am now become a great river, and shall 
shordy be able to rival the Danube or the Rhine, provided those 
friendly rains continue Avhich have favored my banks, but neg- 
lected yours ?" " Very true," replies the humble rivulet, "you 
are now, indeed, swollen to a great size; but methinks you are 
become withal somewhat turbulent and muddy. I am contented 
with my low condition and my purity." 

Instead of commenting upon this fable, I shall take occasion 
from it to compare the different stations of life, and to persuade 
such of my readers as are placed in the middle station to be 
satisfied with it, as the most eligible of all others. These form 
the most numerous rank of men that can be supposed suscepti- 
ble of philosophy, and therefore all discourses of morality ought 
principally to be addressed to them. The great are too much 
immersed in pleasure, and the poor too much occupied in pro- 
viding for the necessities of life, to hearken to the calm voice of 
reason. The middle station, as it is most happy in many re- 
spects, so particularly in this, that a man placed in it can, with 
the greatest leisure, consider his own happiness, and reap a 
new enjoyment, from comparing his situation with that of per- 
sons above or below him. 

Agur's prayer is sufficiently noted — " Two things have I 
required of thee ; deny me them not before I die : remove far 
from me vanity and lies ; give me neither poverty nor riches ; 
feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny 
thee, and say, who is the Lord ? or lest I be poor, and steal, and 
take the name of my God in vain." The middle station is 
here jusdy recommended, as affording the fullest security for 
virtue ; and I may also add, that it gives opportunity for the 
most ample exercise of it, and furnishes employment for every 
good quality which we can possibly be possessed of. Those 
who are placed among the lower ranks of men have little op- 
portunity of exerting any other virtue besides those of patience, 
resignation, industry, and integrity. Those who are advanced 
into the higher stations, have full employment for their gene- 
rosity, humanity, affability, and charity. When a man lies 
betwixt these two extremes, he can exert the former virtues 
towards his superiors, and the latter towards his inferiors. 
Every moral quality which the human soul is susceptible of, 
may have its turn, and be called up to action ; and a man may, 
after this manner, be much more certain of his progress in 



572 BLACKSTONE. [^GEORGE III. 

virtue, than where his good qualities lie dormant and without 
employment. 

But there is another virtue that seems principally to lie among 
equals, and is, for that reason, chiefly calculated for the middle 
station of life. This virtue is friendship. I believe most men 
of generous tempers are apt to envy the great, when they con- 
sider the large opportunities such persons have of doing good 
to their fellow-creatures, and of acquiring the friendship and 
esteem of men of merit. They make no advances in vain, and 
are not obliged to associate with those whom they have little 
kindness for, like people of inferior stations, who are subject to 
have their proffers of friendship rejected even where they would 
be most fond of placing their affections. But though the great 
have more facility in acquiring friendships, they cannot be so 
certain of the sincerity of them as men of a lower rank, since 
the favors they bestow may acquire them flattery, instead of 
good will and kindness. It has been very judiciously remarked, 
that we attach ourselves more by the services we perform than 
by those we receive, and that a man is in danger of losing his 
friends by obliging them, too far. I should therefore choose to 
lie in the middle way, and to have my commerce with my 
friend varied both by obligations given and received. I have 
too much pride to be willing that all the obligations should lie 
on my side, and should be afraid that, if they all lay on his, he 
would also have too much pride to be entirely easy under them, 
or have a perfect complacency in my company. 



SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, 1723-1780. 

This eminent civilian was born in London, in July, 1723. His father 
was a silk-mercer, and the fortune he had acquired in the honorable pursuits 
of trade, was sufficient to enable him to afford his son every advantage of 
education and scholarship. On leaving the University of Oxford, having 
selected the law as his profession, he entered the Middle Temple, on which 
occasion he wrote the sprightly and beautiful Unes entitled " The Lawyer's 
Farewell to his Muse." In due time he was called to the bar, but after 
sewen years of patient and vain expectance, meeting with but httle success, 
he returned to Oxford, with the intention of living on his fellowship. Hav- 
ing, however, obtained an appointment to the law professorship in the uni- 
versity, he so distinguished himself by the lectures he delivered, that he 
resumed the practice of his profession with a success proportioned to his 
great abilities and learning. In 1765 he pubhshed his celebrated "Com- 
mentaries on the Laws of England," than which few books have exerted 



1760-1820.] BLACKSTONE. 573 

a wider influence, it being one of the first works read by every student of 
the law, and the one to which, perhaps, he makes the most frequent refer- 
ence through the whole course of his professional life. In 1770, Blackstone 
was made one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas, which situation 
he held till his death, in 1780. 



THE ORIGIN AND RIGHT OF PROPERTY EXPLAINED. 

There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination 
and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property ; 
or that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and 
exercises over the external things of the world, in a total exclu- 
sion of the right of any other individual in the universe. And 
yet there are very few that will give themselves the trouble to 
consider the original and foundation of this right. Pleased as 
we are with the possession, we seem afraid to look back to the 
means by which it was acquired, as if fearful of some defect 
in our title ; or at best we rest satisfied with the decision of the 
laws in our favor, without examining the reason or authority 
upon which those laws have been built. We think it enough 
that our title is derived by the grant of the former proprietor ; 
by descent from our ancestors, or by the last will and testament 
of the dying owner ; not caring to reflect that (accurately and 
strictly speaking) there is no foundation in nature or in natural 
law, why a set of words upon parchment should convey the 
dominion of land; why the son should have a right to exclude 
his fellow-creatures from a determinate spot of ground, because 
his father had done so before him ; or why the occupier of a 
particular field, or of a jewel, when lying on his death-bed, and 
no longer able to maintain possession, should be entitled to tell 
the rest of the world, which of them should enjoy it after him. 
These inquiries, it must be owned, would be useless and even 
troublesome in common life. It is well if the mass of mankind 
will obey the laws when made, without scrutinizing too nicely 
into the reasons of making them. But, when law is to be con- 
sidered not only as matter of practice, but also as a rational 
science, it cannot be improper or useless to examine more 
deeply the rudiments and grounds of these positive constitu- 
tions of society. 

In the beginning of the world, we are informed by holy writ, 
the all-bountiful Creator gave to man, "dominion over all the 
earth ; and over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, 
and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." This 
is the only true and solid foundation of man's dominion over 



574 BLACKSTONE. [gEORGE III. 

external things, whatever airy metaphysical notions may have 
been started by fanciful writers upon this subject. The earth, 
therefore, and all things therein, are the general property of all 
mankind, exclusive of other beings, from the immediate gift of 
the Creator. And, while the earth continued bare of inhabitants, 
it is reasonable to suppose that all was in common among them, 
and that every one took from the public stock to his own use 
such things as his immediate necessities required. 

These general notions of property were then sufficient to an- 
swer all the purposes of human life; and might, perhaps, still 
have answered them, had it been possible for mankind to have 
remained in a state of primeval simplicity ; as may be collected 
from the manners of many American nations when first dis- 
covered by the Europeans ; and from the ancient method of 
living among the first Europeans themselves, if we may credit 
either the memorials of them preserved in the golden age of the 
poets, or the uniform accounts given by historians of those 
times wherein "«// things were common and undivided to all, 
just as an undividel patrimony ivould be to all.'''' Not that this 
communion of good seems ever to have been applicable, even in 
the earliest ages, to aught but the substance of the thing; nor 
could be extended to the use of it. For, by the law of nature 
and reason, he who first began to use it, acquired therein a kind 
of transient property, that lasted so long as he was using it, and no 
longer: or, to speak with greater precision, the right of posses- 
sion continued for the same time only that the act of possession 
lasted. Thus the ground was in common, and no part of it 
was the permanent property of any man in particular; yet, 
whoever was in the occupation of any determinate spot of it, 
for rest, for shade, or the like, acquired for the time a sort of 
ownership, from which it would have been unjust, and contrary 
to the law of nature, to have driven him by force ; but the 
instant that he quitted the use or occupation of it, another might 
seize it without injustice. Thus also a vine or other tree might 
be said to be in common, as all men were equally entitled to 
its produce ; and yet any private individual might gain the sole 
property of the fruit, which he had gathered for his own repast. 
A doctrine well illustrated by Cicero, who compares the world 
to a great theatre, which is common to the public, and yet the 
place which any man has taken, is for the time his own. 

But when mankind increased in number, craft, and ambition, 
it became necessary to entertain conceptions of more permanent 
dominion: and to appropriate to individuals not the immediate 
use only, but the very substance of the thing to be used. Other- 



1760-1820.] BLACKSTONE. 575 

wise, innumerable tumults must have arisen, and the g-ood order 
of the world been continually broken and disturbed, while a 
variety of persons were striving who should get the first occu- 
pation of the same thing, or disputing which of them had actually 
gained it. As human life also grew more and more refined, 
abundance of conveniences were devised to render it more easy, 
commodious, and agreeable; as, habitations for shelter and 
safety, and raiment for warmth and decency. But no man 
would be at the trouble to provide either, so long as he had 
only an usufructuary property in them, which was to cease the 
instant that he quitted possession ; if, as soon as he walked out 
of his tent, or pulled off his garment, the next stranger who 
came by would have a right to inhabit the one, and to wear the 
other. In the case of habitations, in particular, it was natural 
to observe, that even the brute creation, to whom every thing 
else was in common, maintained a kind of permanent property 
in their dwellings, especially for the protection of their young; 
that the birds of the air had nests, and the beasts of the field 
had caverns, the invasion of which they esteemed a very flagrant 
injustice, and would sacrifice their lives to preserve them. 
Hence a property was soon established in every man's house 
and homestall ; which seem to have been originally mere tem- 
porary huts or movable cabins, suited to the design of Provi- 
dence for more speedily peopling the earth, and suited to the 
wandering life of their owners, before any extensive property 
in the soil or ground was established. And there can be no 
doubt, but that movables of every kind became sooner appro- 
priated than the permanent substantial soil ; partly because they 
were more susceptible of a long occupance, which might be 
continued for months together without any sensible interruption, 
and at length by usage ripen into an established right ; but prin- 
cipally because few of them could be fit for use, till improved 
and meliorated by the bodily labor of the occupant ; which 
bodily labor, bestowed upon any subject which before lay in 
common to all men, is universally allowed to give the fairest 
and most reasonable title to an exclusive property therein. 



THE LAWYER S FAREWELL TO HIS MUSE. 

As by some tyrant's stern command 
A wretch forsakes his native land, 
In foreign climes condemn'd to roam 
An endless exile from his home ; 
Pensive he treads the destined way, 
And dreads to go, nor dares to stay ; 



576 BLACKSTONE. [gEORGE HI. 

Till on some neighboring mountain's brow 
He stops, and turns bis eye^ below : 
Then, melting at the M-ell-kno\vn vie\r, 
Drops a last tear, and bids adieu : 
So I. thus dooni"d from thee to part, 
Gmy Queen of Fancy and of Axt, 
Reluctant move, with doubtful mind, 
Oil stop and often look behind. 

Companion of my tender age, 
Serenely gay, and SAreetly sage, 
How bhthesome were we wont to rove 
By verdant hill or shady grove, 
"Where fervent bees, with hmnming voice. 
Around the honey"d oak rejoice, 
And aged elms with awful bend 
In long cathedral walks extend! 
LuU'd by the lapse of gliding floods, 
Cheer"d by the warbling of the woods, 
How bless'd my days, my thoughts how fiee 
In s"U'eet society with thee ! 
Then all vras joyous, all ^vas young, 
And j'^ears unheeded rolUd along: 
But now the pleasing dream is o'er, 
Those scenes must charm me now no more ; 
Lost to the fields, and torn from you, — 
Farewell ! — a long, a last adieu. 

Me wranghng coiurts, and smbborn law, 
To smoke, and crowds, and cities, draw ; 
There selfish faction rules the day, 
And pride and avarice throng the way ; 
Diseases taint the murky air, 
And midnight conflagrations glare; 
Loose revelry and riot bold 
In frighted streets their orgies hold ; 
Or, where in silence all is drown'd. 
Fell ]Murder walks his lonely round ; 
No room for peace, no room for you, 
Adieu, celestial nymph, adieu ! 

Shakspeare no more, thy sylvan son, 
Nor all the art of Addison, 
Pope's heaven-strung lyre, nor Waller's ease, 
Nor ]\Iilton's might)'- self, must please : 
Instead of thee a formal band 
In furs and coifs around me stand : 
With sounds uncouth and accents dry. 
That grate the soul oF harmony : 
Each pedant sage milocks his store 
Of mystic, dark, discordant lore ; 
And points ^vith tottering hand the wavs 
That lead me to the thorny maze. 



1760-1820.] BLACKSTONE. 577 

There, in a winding close retreat, 
Is justice doom'd to fix her seat; 
There, fenced by bulwarks of the law, 
She keeps the wondering world in awe ; 
And there, from vulgar sight retired, 
Like eastern queens, is more admired. 

let me pierce the secret shade 
Where dwells the venerable maid! 
There humbly mark, with reverend awe, 
The guardian of Britannia's law ; 
Unfold with joy her sacred page, 
Th' united boast of many an age ; 
Where mix'd, yet uniform, appears 
The wisdom of a thousand years. 
In that pure spring the bottom view, 
Clear, deep, and regularly true ; 
And other doctrines thence imbibe 
Than lurk within the sordid scribe ; 
Observe how parts with parts unite 
In one harmonious rule of right ; 
See countless wheels distinctly tend 
By various laws to one great end: 
While mighty Alfred's piercing soul 
Pervades and regulates the whole. 

Then welcome business, vi^elcome strife, 
Welcome the cares, the thorns, of life, 
The visage wan, the purblind sight, 
The toil by day, the lamp at night. 
The tedious forms, the solemn prate, 
The pert dispute, the dull debate. 
The drowsy bench, the babbling Hall, 
For thee, fair Justice, welcome all ! 
Thus, though my noon of life be past, 
Yet let my setting sun, at last, 
Find out the still, the rural cell. 
Where sage Retirement loves to dwell ! 
There let me taste the homefelt bliss 
Of innocence and inward peace ; 
Untainted by the guilty bribe, 
Uncurs'd amid the harpy tribe; 
No orphan's cry to wound my ear ; 
My honor and my conscience clear; 
Thus may 1 calmly meet my end, 
Thus to the grave in peace descend. 



37 



5f8 JOHNSON. [george hi. 



SAMUEL JOHNSON, 1709—1784. 

Samuel Johnson, the Corypheus of English Literature of the eighteenth 
century, was born at Litchfield,' in Staffordshire, September 7th, 1709, and 
was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford. He gave early proof of a 
vigorous understanding and of a great fondness for knowledge ; but poverty 
compelled him to leave the University, after being there three years, with- 
out taking a degree, and he returned to Litchfield in the autumn of 1731, 
destitute, and wholly undetermined what plan of life to pursue. His father, 
who had been a bookseller, and who had become insolvent, died in Decem- 
ber, and in the July following Johnson accepted the situation of usher of the 
grammar-school at Market-Bosworth, in Leicestershire. For this situation, 
however, he soon felt himself utterly unqualified by means of his natural dis- 
position. Though his scholarship was ample, he wanted that patience to 
bear with dulness and waywardness, those kind and urbane manners to win 
love and respect, that tact in controlling and governing youth, and thai happy 
manner of illustrating difficulties and imparting knowledge, which are as 
essential as high literary attainments to form the perfect schoolmaster. No 
wonder, therefore, that he quitted the high vocation in disgust. His scholars, 
doubtless, were quite as glad to get rid of him as he of them. Xon omnes 
om?iibus. 

The next year he obtained temporary employment from a bookseller at 
Birmingham, and soon after, entered into an engagement with Mr. Cave, 
the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, to write for that periodical. This, 
however, was not sufficient to support him, but Cupid happily came to his 
assistance ; for he fell in love with a Mrs. Porter, a widow of little more 
than double her lover's age, and possessed of eight hundred pounds. They 
were married on the 9th of July, 1736, and soon after, Johnson took a large 
house near Litchfield, and opened an academy for classical education. But 
the plan failed, and he went to London, and engaged himself as a regular 
contributor to the Gentleman's Magazine, Here he shortly produced his 
admirable poem entitled "London," in imitation of the third satire of Ju- 
venal. For it, he received from Dodsley ten guineas ; it immediately attracted 
great attention, and Pope, as soon as he read it, said, " The author, whoever 
he is, will not be long concealed." His tragedy of " Irene," produced about 
the same time, was, as regards stage success, a total failure, though, like 
the Cato of Addison, it is full of noble sentiments. His pen was at this time 
continually employed in writing pamphlets, prefaces, epitaphs, essays, and 
biographical memxoirs for the Magazine ; but the compensation he received 
was sm.all, very small ; and it is distressing to reflect that, at this period, the 
poverty of this most distinguished scholar was so great, that he was some- 
times obliged to pass the day without food. 

In 1744 he published the " Life of Richard Savage," one of the best 
written, and most instructive pieces of biography extant, and which was at 

* Hence he has been frequently termed, "The Sage of Litchfield." 



1760-1820.] JOHNSON. 579 

once the theme of general admiration/ In 1747 he issued his plan for his 
" English Dictionary," addressed, in an admirably written pamphlet, to the 
Earl of Chesterfield, who, however, concerned himself very little about its 
success. The time he could spare from this Herculean labor, he gave to 
various literary subjects. In 1749 appeared his " Vanity of Human Wishes,'' 
an admirable poem in imitation of the tenth satire of Juvenal; and in the 
next year he commenced his periodical paper " The Rambler," which de- 
servedly raised the reputation of the author still higher, and which, from the 
peculiar strength of its style, exerted a powerful influence on English Prose 
Literature.^ In 1755, appeared the great work which has made his name 
known wherever the English language is spoken — his long-promised "Dic- 
tionary." Eight long years was he in bringing it to a completion; and 
considering the little aid he could receive from previous lexicographers, it 
was a gigantic undertaking ; cfnd most successfully and nobly did he accom- 
plish it.^ But just before it was published. Lord Chesterfield, with a mean- 
ness only equalled by his previous neglect, endeavored to influence Johnson 
to dedicate it to himself, and for this purpose he wrote two papers, in a 
periodical called " The World," highly complimentary of Johnson's learning 
and labors. Johnson was of course highly indignant,^ and addressed to him 

* One of the best proofs of its attractive power was given by Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, who said that, on his return from Italy, he met with it in Devon- 
shire, knowing nothing of its author, and began to read it while he was stand- 
ing with his arm leaning against a chimney-piece. It seized his attention so 
strongly, that, not being able to lay down the book till he had finished it, 
when he attempted to move, he found his arm totally benumbed. 

* The Rambler commenced on the 20th of IMarch, 1750, and continued, 
every Tuesday and Saturday to March 14, 1752. Of the energy and fertility 
of resource with which this work was conducted, there can be no greater 
proof than that during the whole time, though afflicted with disease, and 
harassed with the toils of lexicography, he wrote the whole himself, with the 
exception of four or five numbers. 

^ The French Academy of forty members were all engaged upon their 
boasted Dictionary, which, after all, was not equal to Johnson's single-handed 
labor. This gave rise to the following spirited lines from Garrick. 
Talk of war with a Briton, he'll boldly advance. 

That one English soldier will beat ten of France ; 

Would we alter the boast from the sword to the pen, 

Our odds are still greater, still greater our men ; 

In the deep mines of science, though Frenchmen may toil, 

Can their strength be compared to Locke, Newton, and Boyle ? 

Let them rally their heroes, send forth all their powers, 

Their verse-men and prose-men ; then match them with ours; 

First Shakspeare and Milton, like gods in the fight, 

Have put their whole drama and epic to flight ; 

In satires, epistles, and odes would they cope. 

Their numbers retreat before Dryden and Pope; 

And JoHNSOX, well arm'd like a hero of yore. 

Has beat forty French, and will beat forty more ! 

* In his anger he exclaimed to his friend Garrick, " I have sailed a long and 
painful voyage round the world of the English language; and does he now 
send out tsvo cock boats to tow me into harbor ?" 



580 JOHNSON. [gEORGE III. 

the following letter, which, for the polish of its style, the elegance of its 
language, the keenness of its sarcasm, its manly disdain, and the condensed 
vigor of its thought, is, perhaps, unequalled in English Literature. 



TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 

My Lord : 

I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of The World, 
that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to 
the public, were written by your lordship. To be so distin- 
guished, is an honor, which, being very little accustomed to 
favors from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in 
what terms to acknowledge. 

When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your 
lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the 
enchantment of your address ; and could not forbear to wish 
that I might boast myself Le vamqueur du vainqueur de la 
terre ;' — that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the 
world contending ; but I found my attendance so little encou- 
raged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to con- 
tinue it. When I had once addressed your lordship in public, 
T had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and un- 
courtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could ; and 
no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so 
little. 

Seven years, my lord, have now passed, since I waited in 
your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during 
which time I have been pushing on my work through difficul- 
ties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at 
last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, 
one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treat- 
ment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before. 

The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, 
and found him a native of the rocks. 

Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on 
a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached 
the ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you 
have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had 
been kind ; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and 
cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I 
am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical 
asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been 

^ The conqueror of the conqueror of the world. 



1760-1820.] JOHNSON. 581 

received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me 
as owing that to a patron, which Providence lias enabled me to 
do for myself. 

Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation 
to any favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I 
should conclude it, if less be possible, with less ; for I have 
been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once 
boasted myself with so much exultation. 
My Lord, 

Your Lordship's most humble. 

Most obedient servant, 

Samuel Johnson. 

In the few years succeeding the publication of his " Dictionary," he em- 
ployed himself in an edition of ShaUspeare, and gave to the world another 
periodical paper entitled " The Idler." In the former, when it appeared in 
1765, the public were very much disappointed ; for though the preface was 
written in a style unsurpassed for its beauty and strength, and showed that 
he well knew the duties and requirements of a commentator upon the great 
dramatic poet, his annotations showed that he had not that critical know- 
ledge of the writers of the times of Shakspeare and antecedent thereto, 
which is requisite properly to elucidate the bard. In 1759 he appeared in a 
new character, that of a Novelist, in the publication of his "Rasselas," 
which was written to defray the expenses of his mother's funeral. In 1762 
he was relieved from pecuniary anxiety by a pension of £300 a year, granted 
to him in consideration of the happy influence of his writings ; for Lord Bute 
expressly told him, on his accepting the bounty, that it was given him not 
for anything he was to do, but for what he had done. 

In the next year, 1763, he was introduced to his biographer, James Bos- 
well, and we have, from this date, a fuller account of him, perhaps, than 
was ever written of any other individual. From this time we are made as 
familiar, as it is in the power of writing to make us, with the character, the 
habits, and the appearance of Johnson, and the persons and things with 
which he is connected. " Everything about him," says an able critic,' "his 
coat, his wig, his figure, his rolling walk, his blinking eye, the outward 
signs which too clearly marked the approbation of his dinner, his insatiable 
appetite for fish sauce, and veal pie with plums, his inextinguishable thirst 
for tea, his trick of touching the posts as he walked, his mysterious practice 
of treasuring up scraps of orange peel, his morning slumbers, his midnight 
disputations, his contortions, his mutterings, his gruntings, his puffings, his 
vigorous, acute, and ready eloquence ; his sarcastic wit, his vehemence, his 

'■ Read the article in the 53d vol. of the Edinburgh Review, or in Macau- 
lay's Miscellanies, vol. ii, page II. Also an article, ''Johnson and his 
Biographers," in the 46th vol. of the Quarterly. Also, Bosweli's Life, Cro- 
ker-s edition — Murphy's Life, in the Preface to his wo-ks — a " Memoir" by 
Sir Walter Scott, in the third volume of his Prose Works — and the "Literary 
Life of Dr. Johnson," in the 4th volume of Drake's Essays. 



582 JOHNSON. [gEORGE III. 

insolence, his fits of tempestuous rage, his queer inmates — old Mr. Levett 
and blind Mrs. Williams, the cat Hodge, and the negro Frank — all are as 
familiar to us as the objects by which we have been surrounded." 

In 1773, in company with Mr. Boswell, he made a tour to the Western 
Islands of Scotland, of which he published an interesting and instructive 
account. In it he pronounces decidedly against the authenticity of the poems 
called "Ossian's." The last of his literary labors was his " Lives of the 
Poets," which were completed in 1781. Though it is a work that, on the 
whole, is justly considered as one of the ablest contributions to English 
biography, it must be read with great caution ; for the criticisms of Johnson 
are too often biased by his strong political, religious, and even personal an- 
tipathies, as is clearly evinced in the gross injustice he has done to the two 
greatest poets of the series — Milton^ and Gray. ' ' His indiscriminate hatred 
of Whig principles ; his detestation of blank verse ; his dislike of pastoral, 
lyric, and descriptive poetry ; his total want of enthusiasm ; and his per- 
petual efforts to veil the splendor of genius, are frequently lost in the admi- 
ration which the blaze and vigor of his intellectual powers so strongly excite. 
This is, in fact, the work in which the excellencies and defects of Johnson 
are placed before the reader with their full prominence ; in which the lovers 
of philology and biography, the friends of moral and ethic wisdom, will find 
much to applaud; bUt in which also the disciples of candor and impartiality, 
the votaries of creative fancy and of genuine poetry, will have much to 
regret and much to condemn." 

Scarcely had he finished his " Lives of the Poets," when in May, 1781, 
he lost his long tried friend Mr. Thrale, in whose house he had become a 
constant resident for fifteen years : and the next year deprived him of his 
old and faithful friend. Dr. Robert Levett, ^ upon whose character he wrote 
those beautiful and touching verses which do so much honor to his heart. 
But his own end was drawing near. In June, 1783, he had a paralytic 
stroke, which for some hours deprived him of the power of speech. From 
this, however, he recovered, but towards the end of the year he was seized 
with a violent fit of asthma, accompanied with dropsical swellings of the legs. 
These affections subsided by the beginning of the next year; but towards 
the autumn they so increased, that all hopes of his recovery were at an end. 
He had always entertained a great dread of death, and his hours of health 
were embittered by his apprehensions of dissolution. But when he saw his 
end actually approaching, he became entirely resigned, strong in his faith in 
Christ, joyful in the hope of his own salvation, and anxious for the salvation 

^ What greater contrast can we conceive than that exhibited in the charac- 
ters of Milton and Johnson ; in the former of whom so predominated the 
imaginative and the spiritual; in the latter, the sensuous and the animal. 

^ This Dr. Levett " was the constant companion of Johnson at his morning's 
meal for near forty years. He was a practitioner of physic among the lower 
orders of people in London : his fees were small, but his business was exten- 
sive, and he always walked. This good man lived in great obscurity, though 
continually and most conscientiously employed in mitigating the sorrows of 
poverty and disease." 



1760-1820.] JOHNSON. 583 

of his friends.' " On the evening of the 13th of December, 1784, and in the 
75ih year of his age, he expired so calmly, that the persons who were sitting 
in the room only knew that he had ceased to breathe, by the sudden failure 
of the sound which had for some days accompanied his respiration." 

The great characteristic of Dr. Johnson was uncommon vigor, and logical 
precision of hitellect. His reasoning was sound, dextrous, and acute ; his 
thoughts striking and original ; and his imagination vivid. In conversation 
his style was keen and pointed, and his language appropriate ; and he dis- 
played such a comprehensive view of his subject, such accuracy of percep- 
tion, such lucidity of discrimination, and such facility of illustration, as to 
throw light upon every question, however intricate, and to prove the best of 
all practical guides in the customary occurrences of life. 

Besides these great qualities he possessed others of a most humiliating 
littleness. In many respects he seemed a different person at different times. 
He was intolerant of particular principles, which he would not allow to be 
discussed within his hearing ; of particular nations, and particular individuals. 
He was superstitious; and his mind was at an early period narrowed upon 
many questions, religious and political. He was open to flattery, hard to 
please, easy to offend, impetuous and irritable. " The characteristic pecu- 
liarity of Johnson's intellect," says a writer in the Edinburgh Review, 
"was the union of great powers with low prejudices. If we judged of him 
by the best parts of his mind, we should place him almost as high as he was 
placed by the idolatry of Boswell; if by the worst parts of his mind, we 
should place him even below Boswell himself." This short and imperfect 
view of his character would convey a wrong impression, did we not add, 
that he was steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of religion, a 
sincere and zealous Christian, and possessed of a most kind and benevolent 
heart.2 

THE VOYAGE OF LIFE. 

" Life," says Seneca, " is a voyage, in the progress of which 
we are perpetually changing onr scenes; we first leave child- 
hood behind us, then youth, then the years of ripened manhood, 
then the better and more pleasing part of old age." The perusal 

'■ On his dying bed, he particularly exliorted Sir Joshua Reynolds "to read 
the Bible, and to keep holy the Sabbath-day," that is, not to paint on that day. 

^ The Earl of Eglintoune, of remarkable elegance of manners, once re- 
marked at a large dinner party, that he regretted that Johnson had not been 
educated with more refinement and lived more in polished society. " No, 
no, my lord," said Baretti, " do with him what you would he would always 
have been a bear." "True," answered the Earl with a smile, " but then 
he would have been a dancing bear." 

"To obviate all the reflections which have gone round the world to John- 
son's prejudice, by applying to him the epithet of a bear, let me impress upon 
my readers a just and happy saying of my friend Goldsmith, who knew him 
well: — * Johnson, to be sure, has a roughness in his manner; but no man 
alive has a more tender heart. He has nothing of the bear but his 
SKIN.' " — Bosivell. 



^©84 JOHNSON. [gEORGE III. 

of this passage having incited in me a train of reflections on the 
state of man, the incessant fluctuation of his wishes, the gradual 
change of his disposition to all external objects, and the thought- 
lessness with which he floats along the stream of time, I sunk 
into a slumber amidst my meditations; and, on a sudden, found 
my ears filled with the tumult of labor, the shouts of alacrity, 
the shrieks of alarm, the whistle of winds, and the dash of 
waters. 

My astonishment for a time repressed my curiosity; but 
soon recovering myself so far as to inquire whither we were 
going, and what was the cause of such clamor and confusion, I 
was told that they were launching out into the ocean of life; that 
we had already passed the straits of infancy, in which mul- 
titudes had perished, some by the weakness and fragility of 
their vessels, and more by the folly, perverseness, or negligence 
of those who undertook to steer them ; and that we w^ere now 
on the main sea, abandoned to the winds and billows, without 
any other means of security than the care of the pilot, whom it 
was always in our power to choose among great numbers that 
off'ered their direction and assistance. 

I then looked round with anxious eagerness ; and first turn- 
ing my eyes behind me, saw a stream flowing through flowery 
islands, which every one that sailed along seemed to behold 
with pleasure ; but no sooner touched than the current, which, 
though not noisy or turbulent, was yet irresistible, bore him 
away. Beyond these islands all was darkness, nor could any 
of the passengers describe the shore at which he first era- 
barked. 

Before me, and on each side, was an expanse of waters vio- 
lently agitated, and covered with so thick a mist, that the most 
perspicacious eye could see but a little way. It appeared to 
be full of rocks and whirlpools, for many sunk unexpectedly 
while they were courting the gale with full sails, and insulting 
those whom they had left behind. So numerous, indeed, w^ere 
the dangers, and so thick the darkness, that no caution could 
confer security. Yet there were many, who, by false intelli- 
gence, betrayed their followers into whirlpools, or by violence 
pushed those whom they found in their way against the rocks. 

The current was invariable and insurmountable; but though 
it was impossible to sail against it, or to return to the place that 
was once passed, yet it was not so violent as to allow no oppor- 
tunities for dexterity or courage, since, though none could re- 
treat hack from danger, yet they might often avoid it by oblique 
direction. 



1760-1820.] JOHNSON. 585 

It was, however, not very common to steer with much care 
or prudence ; for by some universal infatuation, every man ap- 
peared to think himself safe, though he saw his consorts every 
moment sinking round him ; and no sooner had the waves 
closed over them, than their fate and misconduct were forgotten ; 
the voyage was pursued with the same jocund confidence; 
every man congratulated himself upon the soundness of his 
vessel, and believed himself able to stem the whirlpool in which 
his friend was swallowed, or glide over the rocks on which he 
was dashed : nor was it often observed that the sight of a wreck 
made any man change his course : if he turned aside for a mo- 
ment, he soon forgot the rudder, and left himself again to the 
disposal of chance. 

This negligence did not proceed from indifference, or from 
weariness of their present condition ; for not one of those who 
thus rushed upon destruction, failed, when he was sinking, to 
call loudly upon his associates for that help which could not 
now be given him ; and many spent their last moments in cau- 
tioning others against the folly by which they were intercepted 
in the midst of their course. Their benevolence was some- 
times praised, but their admonitions were unregarded. 

The vessels in which we had embarked being confessedly 
unequal to the turbulence of the stream of life, were visibly im- 
paired in the course of the voyage ; so that every passenger 
was certain, that how long soever he might, by favorable acci- 
dents, or by incessant vigilance, be preserved, he must sink at 
last. 

This necessity of perishing might have been expected to 
sadden the gay, and intimidate the daring, at least to keep the 
melancholy and timorous in perpetual torments, and hinder 
them from any enjoyment of the varieties and gratifications 
which nature offered them as the solace of their labor; yet in 
effect none seemed less to expect destruction than those to whom 
it was most dreadful; they all had the art of concealing their 
dangers from themselves ; and those who knew their inability 
to bear the sight of the terrors that embarrassed their way, took 
care never to look forward, but found some amusement for the 
present moment, and generally entertained themselves by play- 
ing with Hope, who was the constant associate of the voyage 
of life. 

Yet all that Hope ventured to promise, even to those whom 
she favored most, was, not that they should escape, but that 
they should sink at last ; and with this promise every one was 
satisfied, though he laughed at the rest for seeming to believe 



^^ JOHNSON. [gEORGE III. 

it. Hope, indeed, apparently mocked the credulity of her com- 
panions ; for in proportion as their vessels grew leaky, she re- 
doubled her assurances of safety ; and none were more busy in 
making provisions for a long voyage, than they whom all but 
themselves saw likely to perish soon by irreparable decay. 

In the midst of the current of life was the gulf of Intem- 
perance, a dreadful whirlpool, interspersed with rocks, of which 
the pointed crags were concealed under water, and the tops 
covered with herbage, on which Ease spread couches of repose, 
and with shades where Pleasure warbled the song of invitation. 
Within sight of these rocks all who sailed on the ocean of life 
must necessarily pass. Reason, indeed, was always at hand 
to steer the passengers through a narrow outlet by which they 
might escape ; but very few could, by her intreaties or remon- 
strances, be induced to put the rudder into her hand, without 
stipulating that she should approach so near unto the rocks of 
Pleasure, that they might solace themselves with a short enjoy- 
ment of that delicious region, after which they always deter- 
mined to pursue their course without any other deviation. 

Reason was too often prevailed upon so far by these pro- 
mises, as to venture her charge within the eddy of the gulf of 
Intemperance, where, indeed, the circumvolution was weak, 
but yet interrupted the course of the vessel, and drew it, by in- 
sensible rotations, towards the centre. She then repented her 
temerity, and with all her force endeavored to retreat ; but the 
draught of the gulf was generally too strong to be overcome ; 
and the passenger, having danced in circles with a pleasing and 
giddy velocity, was at last overwhelmed and lost. Those few 
whom Reason was able to extricate, generally suffered so many 
shocks upon the points which shot out from the rocks of Plea- 
sure, that they were unable to continue their course with the 
same strength and facility as before, but floated along timor- 
ously and feebly, endangered by every breeze, and shattered 
by every ruffle of the water, till they sunk, by slow degrees, 
after long struggles and innumerable expedients, always repin- 
ing at their own folly, and warning others against the first ap- 
proach to the gulf of Intemperance. 

There were artists who professed to repair the breaches and 
stop the leaks of the vessels which had been shattered on the 
rocks of Pleasure. Many appeared to have great confidence 
in their skill, and some, indeed, were preserved by it from sink- 
ing, who had received only a single blow ; but I remarked that 
few vessels lasted long which had been much repaired, nor was 



1760-1820.] JOHNSON. 587 

it found that the artists themselves continued afloat longer than 
those who had least of their assistance. 

The only advantage which, in the voyage of life, the cautious 
had above the negligent, was that they sunk later, and more 
suddenly ; for they passed forward till they had sometimes seen 
all those in whose company they had issued from the straits 
of infancy, perish in the way, and at last were overset by a 
cross breeze, without the toil of resistance, or the anguish of 
expectation. But such as had often fallen against the rocks of 
Pleasure, commonly subsided by sensible degrees, contended 
long with the encroaching waters, and harassed themselves by 
labors that scarce Hope herself could flatter with success. 

As I was looking upon the various fate of the multitude about 
me, I was suddenly alarmed with an admonition from some 
unknown Power, " Gaze not idly upon others when thou thy- 
self art sinking. Whence is this thoughtless tranquillity, when 
thou and they are equally endangered?" I looked, and seeing 
the gulf of Intemperance before me, started and awaked. 

Rambler, No. 102. 

KNOWLEDGE TO BE ACCOMMODATED TO THE PURPOSES OF LIFE. 

It is too common for those who have been bred to scholastic 
professions, and passed much of their time in academies where 
nothing but learning confers honors, to disregard every other 
qualification, and to imagine that they shall find mankind ready 
to pay homage to their knowledge, and to crowd about them 
for instruction. They therefore step out from their cells into 
the open world, with all the confidence of authority and dignity 
of importance ; they look round about them, at once with igno- 
rance and scorn, on a race of beings to whom they are equally 
unknown and equally contemptible, but whose manners they 
must imitate, and with whose opinions they must comply, if 
they desire to pass their time happily among them. 

To lessen that disdain with which scholars are inclined to 
look on the common business of the world, and the unwilling- 
ness with which they condescend to learn what is not to be 
found in any system of philosophy, it may be necessary to con- 
sider that though admiration is excited by abstruse researches 
and remote discoveries, yet pleasure is not given, nor affection 
conciliated, but by softer accomplishments, and qualities more 
easily communicable to those about us. He that can only con- 
verse upon questions, about which only a small part of man- 
kind has knowledge sufficient to make them curious, must lose 



588 JOHNSON. [gEORGE III. 

his days in unsocial silence, and live in the crowd of life with- 
out a companion. He that can only be useful in great occa- 
sions, may die without exerting his abilities, and stand a helpless 
spectator of a thousand vexations which fret away happiness, 
and which nothing is required to remove but a little dexterity 
of conduct and readiness of expedients. 

No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him 
above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire 
of fond endearments and tender officiousness ; and, therefore, 
no one should think it unnecessary to learn those arts by which 
friendship may be gained. Kindness is preserved by a constant 
reciprocation of benefits or interchange of pleasures; but such 
benefits only can be bestowed, as others are capable to receive, 
and such pleasures only imparted, as others are qualified to 
enjoy. 

By this descent from the pinnacles of art, no honor will be 
lost; for the condescensions of learning are always overpaid by 
gratitude. An elevated genius employed in little things, appears, 
to use the simile of Longinus, like the sun in his evening decli- 
nation ; he remits his splendor but retains his magnitude, and 
pleases more though he dazzles less. 

Rambler, No. 137. 



THE RIGHT IMPROVEMENT OF TIME. 

It is usual for those who are advised to the attainment of any 
new qualification, to look upon themselves as required to change 
the general course of their conduct, to dismiss business, and 
exclude pleasure, and to devote their days and nights to a par- 
ticular attention. But all common degrees of excellence are 
attainable at a lower price ; he that should steadily and reso- 
lutely assign to any science or language those interstitial vacan- 
cies which intervene in the most crowded variety of diversion 
or employment, would find every day new irradiations of know- 
ledge, and discover how much more is to be hoped from fre- 
quency and perseverance, than from violent efl^orts and sudden 
desires ; efl^'orts which are soon remitted when they encounter 
difficulty, and desires which, if they are indulged too often, 
will shake off the authority of reason, and range capriciously 
from one object to another. 

The disposition to defer every important design to a time of 
leisure, and a state of settled uniformity, proceeds generally 
from a false estimate of the human power. If we except those 
gigantic and stupendous intelligences who are said to grasp a 



1760-1820.] JOHNSON. 589 

system by intuition, and bound forward from one series of con- 
clusions to another, without regular steps through intermediate 
propositions, the most successful students make their advances 
in knowledge by short flights, between each of which the mind 
may lie at rest. For every single act of progression a short 
time is sufficient; and it is only necessary, that, whenever that 
time is afforded, it will be well employed. 

Few minds will be long confined to severe and laborious 
meditation ; and when a successful attack on knowledge has 
been made, the student recreates himself with the contemplation 
of his conquest, and forbears another incursion till the new- 
acquired truth has become familiar, and his curiosity calls upon 
him for fresh gratifications. Whether the time of intermission 
is spent in companjr, or in solitude, in necessary business, or 
in voluntary levities, the understanding is equally abstracted 
from the object of inquiry; but, perhaps, if it be detained by oc- 
cupations less pleasing, it returns again to study with greater 
alacrity, than when it is glutted with ideal pleasures, and sur- 
feited with intemperance of application. He that will not suffer 
himself to be discouraged by fancied impossibilities, may some- 
times find his abilities invigorated by the necessity of exerting 
them in short intervals, as the force of a current is increased by 
the contraction of its channel. 

From some cause like this it has probably proceeded, that, 
among those who have contributed to the advancement of learn- 
ing, many have risen to eminence in opposition to all the ob- 
stacles which external circumstances could place in their way, 
amidst the tumult of business, the distresses of poverty, or the 
dissipations of a wandering and unsetded state. A great part 
of the life of Erasmus was one continual peregrination ; ill sup- 
plied with the gifts of fortune, and led from city to city, and 
from kingdom to kingdom, by the hopes of patrons and prefer- 
ment, hopes which always flattered and always deceived him ; 
he yet found means by unshaken constancy, and a vigilant im- 
provement of those hours, which, in the midst of the most restless 
activity, will remain unengaged, to write more than another in 
the same condition would have hoped to read. Compelled by 
want to attendance and solicitation, and so much versed in com- 
mon life, that he has transmitted to us the most perfect delinea- 
tion of the manners of his age, he joined to his knowledge of 
the world such application to books, that he will stand for ever 
in the first rank of literary heroes. How this proficiency was 
obtained he sufficiently discovers, by informing us, that the 
" Praise of Folly," one of his most celebrated performances, 



590 JOHNSON. LgEORGE III, 

was composed by him on the road to Italy, lest the hours which 
he was obliged to spend on horseback should be tatded away 
without regard to literature. 

An Italian philosopher expressed in his motto, that time was 
HIS estate; an estate, indeed, which will produce nothing with- 
out cultivation, but will always abundantly repay the labors of 
industry, and satisfy the most extensive desires, if no part of it 
be suffered to lie w^aste by negligence, to be over-run with nox- 
ious plants, or laid out for show rather than for use. 

Rambler, No. lOS. 



THE DUTY OF FORGIVENESS. 

A wise man wall make haste to forgive, because he knows 
the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in 
unnecessary pain. He that willingly suffers the corrosions of 
inveterate hatred, and gives up his days and nights to the gloom 
of malice and perturbations of stratagem, cannot surely be said 
to consult his ease. Resentment is an union of sorrow with 
malignity, a combination of a passion which all endeavor to 
avoid, with a passion which all concur to detest. The man 
who retires to meditate mischief, and to exasperate his own 
rage ; whose thoughts are employed only on means of distress 
and contrivances of ruin; whose mind never pauses from the 
remembrance of his own sufferings, but to indulge some hope 
of enjoying the calamities of another, may justly be numbered 
among the most miserable of human beings, among those who 
are guilty without reward, who have neither the gladness of 
prosperity nor the calm of innocence. 

Whoever considers the weakness both of himself and others, 
will not long want persuasives to forgiveness. We know not 
to what degree of malignity any injury is to be imputed; or 
how much its guilt, if we were to inspect the mind of him that 
committed it, would be extenuated by mistake, precipitance, or 
negligence ; w^e cannot be certain how much more we feel than 
was intended to be inflicted, or how much we increase the mis- 
chief to ourselves by voluntary aggravations. W^e may charge 
to design the effects of accident ; v/e may think the blow violent 
only because we have made ourselves delicate and tender; we 
are on every side in danger of error and of guilt, which we are 
certain to avoid only by speedy forgiveness. 

From this pacific and harmless temper, thus propitious to 
others and ourselves, to domestic tranquillity and to social hap- 



1760-1820.] JOHNSON. 591 

piness, no man is withheld but by pride, by the fear of being 
insulted by his adversary, or despised by the world. 

It may be laid down as an unfailing and universal axiom, 
that " all pride is abject and mean." It is always an ignorant, 
lazy, or cowardly acquiescence in a false appearance of excel- 
lence, and proceeds not from consciousness of our attainments, 
but insensibility of our wants. 

Nothing can be great which is not right. Nothing which 
reason condemns can be suitable to the dignity of the human 
mind. To be driven by external motives from the path which 
our own heart approves, to give way to any thing but convic- 
tion, to suffer the opinion of others to rule our choice or over- 
power our resolves, is to submit tamely to the lowest and most 
ignominious slavery, and to resign the right of directing our 
own lives. 

The utmost excellence at which humanity can arrive, is a 
constant and determinate pursuit of virtue, without regard to 
present dangers or advantages ; a continual reference of every 
action to the divine will ; an habitual appeal to everlasting jus- 
tice ; and an unvaried elevation of the intellectual eye to the 
reward which perseverance only can obtain. But that pride 
which many, who presume to boast of generous sentiments, 
allow to regulate their measures, has nothing nobler in view 
than the approbation of men, of beings whose superiority we 
are under no obligation to acknowledge, and who, when we 
have courted them with the utmost assiduity, can confer no 
valuable or permanent reward; of beings who ignorantly judge 
of what they do not understand, or partially determine what 
they never have examined; and whose sentence is, therefore, 
of no weight till it has received the ratification of our own con- 
science. 

He that can descend to bribe suffrages like these at the price 
of his innocence ; he that can suffer the delight of such accla- 
mations to withhold his attention from the commands of the 
universal Sovereign, has little reason to congratulate himself 
upon the greatness of his mind: v/henever he awakes to serious- 
ness and reflection, he must become despicable in his own eyes, 
and shrink with shame from the remembrance of his cowardice 
and folly. 

Of him that hopes to be forgiven, it is indispensably required 
that he forgive. It is, therefore, superfluous to urge any other 
motive. On this great duty eternity is suspended, and to him 
that refuses to practise it, the throne of mercy is inaccessible, 
and the Saviour of the world has been born in vain. 

Rambler, No. 185. 



592 JOHNSON. [gEORGE III. 

SOLITUDE NOT DESIRABLE. 

Though learning may be conferred by solitude, its application 
must be attained by general converse. He has learned to no 
purpose that is not able to teach; and he will always teach un- 
successfully, who cannot recommend his sentiments by his dic- 
tion or address. 

Even the acquisition of knowledge is often much facilitated 
by the advantages of society : he that never compares his no- 
tions with those of others, readily acquiesces in his first thoughts, 
and very seldom discovers the objections which may be raised 
ag'ainst his opinions; he, therefore, often thinks himself in pos- 
session of truth, when he is only fondling an error long since 
exploded. He that has neither companions nor rivals in his 
studies, will always applaud his own progress, and think highly 
of his performances, because he knows not that others have 
equaled or excelled him. And I am afraid it may be added, 
that the student who withdraws himself from the world, will 
soon feel that ardor extinguished which praise or emulation had 
enkindled, and take the advantage of secrecy to sleep, rather 
than to labor. 

There is a set of recluses, whose intention entitles them to 
respect, and whose motives deserve a serious consideration. 
These retire from the world, not merely to bask in ease or 
gratify curiosity ; but that being disengaged from common cares, 
they may employ more time in the duties of religion: that they 
may regulate their actions with stricter vigilance, and purify 
their thoughts by more frequent meditation. 

To men thus elevated above the mists of mortality, I am far 
from presuming myself qualified to give directions. On him 
that appears " to pass through things temporal," with no other 
care than " not to lose finally the things eternal," I look with 
such veneration as inclines me to approve his conduct in the 
whole, without a minute examination of its parts ; yet I could 
never forbear to wish, that while vice is every day multiplying 
seducements, and stalking forth with more hardened effrontery, 
virtue would not withdraw the influence of her presence, or 
forbear to assert her natural dignity by open and undaunted 
perseverance in the right. Piety practised in solitude, like the 
flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the 
winds of heaven, and delight those unbodied spirits that survey 
the works of God and the actions of men ; but it bestows no 
assistance upon earthly beings, and however free from taints of 
impurity, yet wants the sacred splendor of beneficence. 

Adventurer, No. 126. 



1760-1820.] JOHNSON. 593 



FROM THE PREFACE TO HIS DICTIONARY. 

In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature 
forbids to be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labor of 
years, to the honor of my country, that we may no longer yield 
the palm of philology, without a contest, to the nations of the 
continent. The chief glory of every people arises from its 
authors: whether I shall add any thing by my own writings to 
the reputation of English literature, must be left to time ; much 
of my life has been lost under the pressures of disease ; much 
has been trifled away ; and much has always been spent in pro- 
vision for the day that was passing over me ; but I shall not 
think my employment useless or ignoble, if, by my assistance, 
foreign nations and distant ages gain access to the propagators 
of knowledge, and understand the teachers of truth ; if my la- 
bors afford light to the repositories of science, and add celebrity 
to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and to Boyle. 

"When I am animated by this wish, I look with pleasure on 
my book, however defective, and deliver it to the world with 
the spirit of a man that has endeavored well. That it will im- 
mediately become popular, I have not promised to myself; a 
few wild blunders and risible absurdities, from which no work 
of such multiplicity was ever free, may for a time furnish folly 
with laughter, and harden ignorance into contempt; but useful 
diligence will at last prevail, and there can never be wanting some 
who distinguish desert, who will consider that no dictionary of 
a living tongue ever can be perfect, since, while it is hastening 
to publication, some words are budding and some falling away ;■ 
that a whole life cannot be spent upon syntax and etymology, 
and that even a whole life would not be sufficient ; that he whose 
design includes whatever language can express, must often 
speak of what he does not understand ; that a writer will some- 
times be hurried by eagerness to the end, and sometimes faint 
with weariness under a task which Scaliger compares to the 
labors of the anvil and the mine ; that what is obvious is not 
always known, and what is known is not always present ; that 
sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise vigilance, slight avoca- 
tions will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the mind 
will darken learning ; and that the writer shall often in vain trace 
his memory at the moment of need for that which yesterday he 
knew with intuitive readiness, and which will come uncalled 
into his thoughts to-morrow. 

In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let 
38 



S94 JOHNSON. [gEORGB 111. 

it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though 
no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and 
the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the 
faults of that which it condemns, yet it may gratify curiosity to 
inform it, that the English Dictionary was written with little 
assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the 
great ; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the 
shelter of academic bowers, but amid inconvenience and dis- 
traction, in sickness and in sorrow. It may repress the triumph 
of malignant criticism to observe, that if our language is not 
here fully displayed, I have only failed in an attempt which no 
human powers have hitherto completed. If the lexicons of 
ancient tongues, now immutably fixed, and comprised in a few 
volumes, be yet, after the toil of successive ages, inadequate and 
delusive; if the aggregated knowledge and co-operating dili- 
gence of the Italian academicians did not secure them from the 
censure of Beni ; if the embodied critics of France, when fifty 
years had been spent upon their work, were obliged to change 
its economy, and give their second edition another form, I may 
surely be contented without the praise of perfection, which, if 
I could obtain in this gloom of solitude, what would it avail me ? 
I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished 
to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage 
are empty sounds. I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquil- 
lity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise. 



REFLECTIONS OX LANDING AT lONA. 

We were now treading that illustrious island which was once 
the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans 
and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and 
the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local 
emotion would be impossible if it were endeavored, and would 
be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from 
the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, 
or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the 
dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and my friends be 
such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and un- 
moved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, 
bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied whose pa- 
triotism would not gain force on the plains of Marathon, or 
whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of lona, 

^ One of the Western Isles. 



1760-1820.] JOHNSON. 595 



PICTURE OF THE MISERIES OF WAR. 

It is wonderful with what coolness and indifference the 
greater part of mankind see war commenced. Those that hear 
of it at a distance or read of it in books, but have never pre- 
sented its evils to their minds, consider it as little more than a 
splendid game, a proclamation, an army, a battle, and a triumph. 
Some, indeed, must perish in the successful field, but they die 
upon the bed of honor, resign their lives amidst the joys of 
conquest, and, filled with England's glory, smile in death ! 

The life of a modern soldier is ill represented by heroic 
fiction. War has means of destruction more formidable than 
the cannon and the sword. Of the thousands and ten thou- 
sands that perished in our late contests with France and Spain, 
a very small part ever felt the stroke of an enemy ; the rest 
languished in tents and ships, amidst damps and putrefaction ; 
pale, torpid, spiritless, and helpless ; gasping and groaning, 
unpitied among men, made obdurate by long continuance of 
hopeless misery ; and were at last whelmed in pits, or heaved 
into the ocean, without notice and without remembrance. By 
incommodious encampments and unwholesome stations, where 
courage is useless and enterprise impracticable, fleets are silently 
dispeopled, and armies sluggishly melted away. 

Thus is a people gradually exhausted, for the most part, with 
little effect. The wars of civilized nations make very slow 
changes in the system of empire. The public perceives 
scarcely any alteration but an increase of debt ; and the few 
individuals who are benefited are not supposed to have the 
clearest right to their advantages. If he that shared the danger 
enjoyed the profit, and after bleeding in the battle, grew rich 
by the victory, he might show his gains without envy. But at 
the conclusion of a ten years' war, how are we recompensed 
for the death of multitudes and the expense of millions, but by 
contemplating the sudden glories of paymasters and agents, 
contractors and commissaries, whose equipages shine like 
meteors, and whose palaces rise like exhalations ! 



FROM HIS PREFACE TO SHAKSPEARE. 

Shakspeare is, above all writers, at least above all modern 
writers, the poet of nature ; the poet that holds up to his readers 
a faithful mirror of manners and of life. His characters are 
not modified by the customs of particular places, unpractised 



596 JOHNSON. [gEORGE III. 

by the rest of the world ; by the peculiarities of studies or pro- 
fessions, which can operate but upon small numbers ; or by the 
accidents of transient fashions or temporary opinions : they are 
the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world 
will always supply, and observation will always find. His 
persons act and speak by the influence of those general passions 
and principles by which all minds are agitated, and the whole 
system of life is continued in motion. In the writings of other 
poets a character is too often an individual : in those of Shak- 
speare it is commonly a species. 

It is from this wide extension of design that so much instruc- 
tion is derived. It is this which fills the plays of Shakspeare 
with practical axioms and domestic wisdom. It was said of 
Euripides, that every verse was a precept; and it may be said 
of Shakspeare, that from his works may be collected a system 
of civil and economical prudence. Yet his real power is not 
shown in the splendor of particular passages, but by the pro- 
gress of his fable, and the tenor of his dialogue : and he that 
tries to recommend him by select quotations, will succeed like 
the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his house to 
sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen. 

It will not easily be imagined how much Shakspeare excels 
in accommodating his sentiments to real life, but by comparing 
him with other authors. It was observed of the ancient schools 
of declamation, that the more diligently they were frequented, 
the more was the student disqualified for the world, because he 
found nothing there which he should ever meet in any other 
place. The same remark may be applied to every stage but 
that of Shakspeare. The theatre, when it is under any other 
direction, is peopled by such characters as were never seen, 
conversing in a language which was never heard, upon topics 
which will never arise in the commerce of mankind. But the 
dialogue of this author is often so evidently determined by the 
incident which produces it, and is pursued with so much ease 
and simplicity, that it seems scarcely to claim the merit of fic- 
tion, but to have been gleaned by diligent selection out of com- 
mon conversation, and common occurrences. 

Upon every other stage the universal agent is love, by whose 
power all good and evil is distributed, and every action quick- 
ened or retarded. To bring a lover, a lady, and a rival into the 
fable ; to entangle them in contradictory obligations, perplex 
them with oppositions of interest, and harass them with violence 
of desires inconsistent with each other; to make them meet in 
rapture, and part in agony; to fill their mouths with hyper- 



1760-1820.] JOHNSON. 597 

bolical joy and outrageous sorrow ; to distress them as nothing 
human ever was distressed ; to deliver them as nothing^ human 
ever was delivered; is the business of a modern dramatist. For 
this, probability is violated, life is misrepresented, and language 
is depraved. But love is only one of many passions ; and as 
it has no great influence upon the sum of life, it has little ope- 
ration in the dramas of a poet, who caught his ideas from the 
living world, and exhibited only what he saw before him. He 
knew that any other passion, as it was regular or exorbitant, 
was a cause of happiness or calamity. 

This, therefore, is the praise of Shakspeare, that his drama 
is the mirror of life ; that he who has mazed his imagination, 
in following the phantoms which other writers raise up before 
him, may here be cured of his delirious ecstacies, by reading 
human sentiments in human language, by scenes from which a 
hermit may estimate the transactions of the world, and a con- 
fessor predict the progress of the passions. 

Shakspeare's plays are not in the rigorous and critical sense 
either tragedies or comedies, but compositions of a distinct 
kind ; exhibiting the real state of sublunary nature, which par- 
takes of good and evil, joy and sorrow, mingled with endless 
variety of proportion and innumerable modes of combination ; 
and expressing the course of the world, in which the loss of 
one is the gain of another; in which, at the same time, the 
reveller is hasting to his wine, and the mourner burying his 
friend ; in which the malignity of one is sometimes defeated by 
the frolic of another ; and many mischiefs and many benefits 
are done and hindered without design. 

Shakspeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and 
sorrow not only in one mind, but in one composition. Almost 
all his plays are divided between serious and ludicrous cha- 
racters, and, in the successive evolutions of the design, some- 
times produce seriousness and sorrow, and sometimes levity 
and laughter. 

That this is a practice contrary to the rules of criticism will 
be readily allowed; but there is always an appeal open from 
criticism to nature. The end of writing is to instruct; the end 
of poetry is to instruct by pleasing. That the mingled drama 
may convey all the instruction of tragedy or comedy cannot be 
denied, because it includes both in its alternations of exhibition, 
and approaches nearer than either to the appearance of life, by 
showing how great machinations and slender designs may pro- 
mote or obviate one another, and the high and the low co-ope- 
rate in the general system by unavoidable concatenation. 



598 JOHNSON. [gEORGE III. 

The force of his comic scenes has suffered little diminution 
from the changes made by a century and a half, in manners or 
in words. As his personages act upon principles arising from 
genuine passion, very little modified by particular forms, their 
pleasures and vexations are communicable to all times and to 
all places ; they are natural, and therefore durable. The adven- 
titious peculiarities of personal habits are only superficial dyes, 
bright and pleasing for a little while, yet soon fading to a dim 
tinct, without any remains of former lustre ; but the discrimina- 
tions of true passion are the colors of nature: they pervade the 
whole mass, and can only perish with the body that exhibits 
them. The accidental compositions of heterogeneous modes 
are dissolved by the chance which combined them ; but the 
uniform simplicity of primitive qualities neither admits increase, 
nor suffers decay. The sand heaped by one flood is scattered 
by another, but the rock always continues in its place. The 
streain of time, which is continually washing the dissoluble 
fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant 
of Shakspeare. 



THE FATE OF POVERTY. 

By numbers here from shame or censure free, 
All crimes are safe but hated poverty. 
This, only this, the rigid law pursues, 
This, only this, provokes the snarling muse. 
The sober trader at a tatter'd cloak 
Wakes from his dream, and labors for a joke; 
With brisker air the silken courtiers gaze, 
And turn the varied taunt a thousand ways. 

Of all the griefs that harass the distress'd. 
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest; 
Fate never wounds more deep the gen'rous heart, 
Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart. 

Has Heaven reserv'd, in pity to the poor. 
No pathless waste, or undiscover'd shore? 
No secret island in the boundless main ? 
No peaceful desert yet unclaim'd' by Spain? 
Quick let us rise, the happy seats explore, 
And bear oppression's insolence no more. 
This mournful truth is every where confess'd, 
Slow bises worth, by povebtt depbess'd. 

From London. 

* The Spaniards had at this time laid claim to several of the English 
provinces in America. 



1760-1820.] JOHNSON. 599 



CARDINAL WOLSEY. 

In full-blown dignity see Wolsey stand, 

Law in his voice, and fortune in his hand: 

To him the church, the realm, their pow'rs consign; 

Through him the rays of regal bounty shine. 

Turn'd by his nod the stream of honor flows, 

His smile alone security bestows 5 

Still to new heights his restless wishes tower. 

Claim leads to claim, and power advances power ; 

Till conquest, unresisted, ceased to please. 

And rights submitted left him none to seize. 

At length his sovereign frowns — the train of state 

Mark the keen glance, and watch the sign to hate. 

Where'er he turns, he meets a stranger's eye, 

His suppliants scorn him, and his followers fly; 

Now drops at once the pride of awful state, 

The golden canopy, the glittermg plate. 

The regal palace, the luxurious board, 

The liveried army, and the menial lord. 

With age, with cares, with maladies oppress'd, 

He seeks the refuge of monastic rest : 

Grief aids disease, remember'd folly stings. 

And his last sighs reproach the faith of kings. 

From the Vanity of Human Wishes. 



CHARLES XII/ 

On what foundation stands the warrior's pride, 

How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide ; 

A frame of adamaiit, a soul of fire. 

No dangers fright him, and no labors tire ; 

0"er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain, 

Unconquer'd lord of pleasure and of pain ; 

No joys to him pacific sceptres yield, 

War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field; 

Behold surrounding kings their powers combine, 

And one capitulate, and one resign ; 

Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain; 

" Think nothing gain'd," he cries, " till nought remain, 

On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly. 

And all be mine beneath the polar sky." 

The march begins in militarj'- state. 

And nations on his eye suspended wait : 

Stern Famine guards the solitary coast, 

And Winter barricades the realms of Frost ; 

^ Charles XII., King of Sweden, having invaded Russia, was totally defeated 
at the battle of Pultowa, and forced to seek refuge in Turkey. He was after- 
wards killed at the siege of a little fort in Norway. 



600 JOHNSON. [GEORGE III. 

He comes, nor want nor cold his course delay ; — 
Hide, blushing Glory, hide Pultowa's day ! 
The vanquish'd hero leaves his broken bands, 
And shows his miseries in distant lands ; 
Condemned, a needy suppliant, to wait. 
While ladies interpose, and slaves debate. 
But did not Chance at length her error mend ? 
Did no subverted empire mark his end? 
Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound? 
Or hostile millions press him to the ground? 
His fall was destined to a barren strand, 
A petty fortress, and a dubious hand ; 
He left a name, at which the world grew pale, 
To point a moral, or adorn a tale. 

From the same. 



OBJECTS OF PETITION. 

Where then shall Hope and Fear their objects find? 

Must dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind ? 

Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, 

Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate ? 

Must no dislike alarm, no wishes rise ; 

No cries invoke the mercies of the skies ? 

Inquirer, cease ; petitions yet remain, 

Which Heaven may hear, nor deem religion vain. 

Still raise for good the suioplicating voice. 

But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice. 

Safe in His pow'r, whose eyes discern afar 

The secret ambush of a specious pray"r ; 

Implore His aid, in His decisions rest, 

Secm'e, whate'er He gives, He gives the best. 

Yet, when the sense of sacred presence fires, 

And strong devotion to the skies aspires. 

Pour forth thy fervors for a healthful mind, 

Obedient passions, and a will resigned ; 

For love, which scarce collective inan can fill ; 

For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill; 

For faith, that, panting for a happier seat, 

Coimts death kind Nature's signal of retreat : 

These goods for man the laws of Heaven ordain, 

These goods He grants, who grants the pow'r to gain ; 

With these celestial Wisdom calms the mind, 

And makes the happiness she does not find. 

From the same. 



THE FOLLY OF PROCRASTINATION. 

To morrow's action ! can that hoary wisdom. 
Borne down with years, still doat upon to-morrow ! 
That fatal mistress of the young, the lazy. 
The coward, and the fool, condemn'd to lose 



1760-1820.] JOHNSON. 601 

An useless life in waiting for to-morrow, 
To gaze with longing eyes upon to-morrow, 
Till interposing death destroys the prospect! 
Strange ! that this gen'ral fraud from day to day 
Should fill the world with wretches undetected. 
The soldier, laboring through a winter's march. 
Still sees to-morrow drest in robes of triumph ; 
Still to the lover's long-expecting arms, 
To-morrow brings the visionary bride. 
But thou, too old to bear another cheat, 
Learn, that the present hour alone is man's. 

From the Tragedy of Irene. 



LINES ON THE DEATH OF DR. ROBERT LEVETT. 

Condemned to hope's delusive mine, 

As on we toil from day to day, 
By sudden blasts, or slow decline, 

Our social comforts drop away. 

Well tried through many a varying year, 

See Levett to the grave descend. 
Officious, innocent, smcere. 

Of every friendless name the friend. 

Yet still he fills affection's eye. 

Obscurely wise and coarsely kind ; 

Nor, lettered arrogance, deny 
Thy praise to merit unrefined. 

When fainting nature called for aid, 

And hovering death prepared the blow, 

His vigorous remedy displayed 

The power of art without the show. 

In misery's darkest cavern known. 

His useful care was ever nigh, 
Where hopeless anguish poured his groan, 

And lonely want retired to die. 

No summons mocked by chill delay. 
No petty gain disdained by pride ; 

The modest wants of every day 
The toil of every day supplied. 

His virtues walked their narrow round, 
Nor made a pause, nor left a void: 

And sure the Eternal Master found 
The single talent well employed. 

The busy day — the peaceful night, 

Unfelt, uncounted, glided by ; 
His frame was firm — his powers were bright 

Though now his eightieth year was nigh. 



602 LOWTH. [gEORGE III. 

Then with no fiery throbbing pain, 

No cold gradations of decay, 
Death broke at once the vital chain, , 

And freed his soul the nearest way. 



ROBERT LOWTH, 1710—1787. 

Robert Lowth, a distinguished prelate in the English church, was born 
in the year 1710. He was educated at Winchester School and at Oxford,' 
and after leaving the University he entered into the church, in which he rose 
by regular gradations till he became, in 1777, Bishop of London. He died 
in 1787, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. 

The writings by which Bishop Lowth is most known, are, "A Short 
Introduction to English Grammar," for many years a text-book in the 
schools and colleges in England and in this country; his "Translation of 
the Prophet Isaiah," with a large body of valuable notes ; and his "Lectures 
on the Poetry of the Hebrews." The latter is a work which unites a depth 
of learning to a discriminating criticism and a refined taste, in a very unusual 
degree ; and while it is of inestimable value to the professed Biblical student, 
it affords equal pleasure and instruction to the general reader. From the 
first Lecture we extract the following just and tasteful remarks, upon 

THE ADVANTAGES AND PLEASURES OF POETRY. 

Poetry is commonly understood to have two objects in view, 
namely, advantage and pleasure, or rather an union of both. I 
wish those who have furnished us with this definition had 
rather proposed utility as its ultimate object, and pleasure as 
the means by which that end may be effectually accomplished. 

' " I was educated," says Bishop Lowth, " in the University of Oxford. I 
enjoyed all the advantages, both public and private, which that famous seat 
of learning so largely affords. I spent many years in that illustrious society, 
in a well-regulated course of useful discipline and studies, and in the agreea- 
ble and improving commerce of gentlemen and of scholars; in a society where 
emulation without envy, ambition without jealousy, contention without ani- 
mosity, incited industry, and awakened genius; where a liberal pursuit of 
knowledge, and a genuine freedom of thought, were raised, encouraged, and 
pushed forward by example, by commendation, and by authority. I breathed 
the same atmosphere that the Hookers, the Chillingwobths, and the Lockes 
had breathed before; whose benevolence and humanity were as extensive as 
their vast genius and comprehensive knowledge." 

With reference to this encomium of Lowth upon his Alma Mater, Gibbon, 
the historian, makes the following beautiful remark: "The expression of 
gratitude is a virtue and a pleasure : a liberal mind will delight to cherish and 
celebrate the memory of its parents; and the teachers of science are the 

PARENTS OF THE MIND." 



1760-1820.] LOWTH. 603 

The philosopher and the poet, indeed, seem principally to differ 
in the means by which they pursue the same end. Each sus- 
tains the character of a preceptor, which the one is thought best 
to support, if he teach with accuracy, with subtlety, and with 
perspicuity ; the other, with splendor, harmony, and elegance. 
The one makes his appeal to reason only, independent of the 
passions ; the other addresses the reason in such a manner as 
even to engage the passions on his side. The one proceeds to 
virtue and truth by the nearest and most compendious ways ; 
the other leads to the same point through certain deflections 
and deviations, by a winding but pleasanter path. It is the 
part of the former so to describe and explain these objects, that 
we must necessarily become acquainted with them ; it is the 
part of the latter so to dress and adorn them, that of our own 
accord we must love and embrace them. 

I therefore lay it down as a fundamental maxim, that Poetry 
is useful,' chiefly because it is agreeable ; and should I, as we 
are apt to do, attribute too much to my favorite occupation, I 
trust Philosophy will forgive me when I add, that the writings 
of the poet are more useful than those of the philosopher, inas- 
much as they are more agreeable. To illustrate this position 
by a well-known example : — Who can believe that even the 
most tasteless could peruse the writings on agriculture, either 
of the learned Varro or of Columella, an author by no means 
deficient in elegance, with the same pleasure and attention as 
that most delightful and most perfect work, the Georgics of 
Virgil ? a work in which he has equalled the most respectable 
writers in the solidity of his matter, and has greatly excelled 
the most elegant in the incredible harmony of his numbers. 

But if it be manifest, even in authors who directly profess 

^ I cannot but insert here the following very fine remarks of Leigh Hunt, 
on the Utility of Poetry. " No man recognizes the worth of utility more than 
the poet : he only desires that the meaning of the term may not come short 
of its greatness, and exclude the noblest necessities of his fellow-creatures. 
He is quite as much pleased, for instance, with the facilities for rapid convey- 
ance afforded him by the rail-road, as the dullest confiner of its advantages to 
that single idea, or as the greatest two-idead man who varies that single idea 
with hugging himself on his ' buttons' or his good dinner. But he sees also 
the beauty of the country through which he passes, of the towns, of the 
heavens, of the steam-engine itself, thundering and fuming along like a magic 
horse; of the affections that are carrying, perhaps, half the passengers on 
their journey, nay, of those of the great two-idead man ; and, beyond all this, 
he discerns the incalculable amount of good, and knowledge, and refinement, 
and mutual consideration, which this wonderful invention is fitted to circulate 
over the globe, perhaps to the displacement of war itself, and certainly to the 
diffusion of millions of enjovments." 



604 LOWTH. [gEORGE III. 

improvement and advantage, that those will most efficaciously 
instruct who afford most entertainment ; the same will be still 
more apparent in those who, dissembling the intention of in- 
struction, exhibit only the blandishments of pleasure ; and 
while they treat of the most important things, of all the prin- 
ciples of moral action, all the offices of life, yet laying aside the 
severity of the preceptor, adduce at once all the decorations of 
elegance, and all the attractions of amusement : who display, 
as in a picture, the actions, the manners, the pursuits and pas- 
sions of men ; and by the force of imitation and fancy, by the 
harmony of numbers, by the taste and variety of imagery, cap- 
tivate the affections of the reader, and imperceptibly, or perhaps 
reluctandy, impel him to the pursuit of virtue. Such is the real 
purpose of heroic poetry ; such is the noble effect produced by 
the perusal of Homer. And who so thoughtless, or so callous, 
as not to feel incredible pleasure in that most agreeable occu- 
pation ? Who is not moved, astonished, enraptured, by the 
inspiration of that most sublime genius ? Who so inanimate as 
not to see, not to feel inscribed, or as it were imprinted upon 
his heart, his most excellent maxims concerning human life and 
manners ? From philosophy a few cold precepts may be de- 
duced; in history, some dull and spiritless examples of man- 
ners may be found : here we have the energetic voice of Virtue 
herself, here we behold her animated form. Poetry addresses 
her precepts not to the reason alone ; she calls the passions to 
her aid : she not only exhibits examples, but infixes them in 
the mind. She softens the wax with her peculiar ardor, and 
renders it more plastic to the artist's hand. Thus does Horace 
most truly and most jusdy apply this commendation to the 
poets : 

" What's fair, and false, and right, these bards describe. 
Better and plainer than the Stoic tribe :'" — 

Plainer, or more completely, because they do not perplex their 
disciples with the dry detail of parts and definitions, but so 
perfectly and so accurately delineate, by examples of every 
kind, the forms of the human passions and habits, the princi- 
ples of social and civilized life, that he who from the schools of 
philosophy should turn to the representations of Homer, would 
feel himself transported from a narrow and intricate path to an 
extensive and flourishing field : — Better, because the poet 
teaches not by maxims and precepts, and in the dull senten- 
tious form ; but by the harmony of verse, by the beauty of 
imagery, by the ingenuity of the fable, by the exactness of 



1760-1820.] LOWTH. 605 

imitation, he allures and interests the mind of the reader, he 
fashions it to habits of virtue, and in a manner informs it with 
the spirit of integrity itself. 

But if from the Heroic we turn to the Tragic Muse, to which 
Aristotle indeed assigns the preference, because of the true and 
perfect imitation, we shall yet more clearly evince the supe- 
riority of poetry over philosophy, on the principle of its being 
more agreeable. Tragedy is, in truth, no other than philosophy 
introduced upon the stage, retaining all its natural properties, 
remitting nothing of its native gravity, but assisted and embel- 
lished by other favoring circumstances. What point, for in- 
stance, of moral discipline have the tragic writers of Greece 
left untouched or unadorned ? What duty of life, what prin-' 
ciple of political economy, w^hat motive or precept for th^e^ 
government of the passions, what commendation of virtue is 
there, which they have not treated of with fulness, variety, and 
learning? The moral of iEschylus (not only a poet, but a 
Pythagorean) will ever be admired. Nor were Sophocles and 
Euripides less illustrious for the reputation of wisdom ; the 
latter of whom was the disciple of Socrates and Anaxagoras, 
and was known among his friends by the title of the dramatic 
philosopher. In these authors, surely, the allurements of 
poetry afforded some accession to the empire of philosophy ; 
nor indeed has any man arrived at the summit of poetic fame, 
who did not previously lay the foundation of his art in ti'ue 
philosophy. 

But there are other species of poetry which also deserve to 
partake in the commendation ; and first the Ode, 

"With thoughts that breathe, and words that burn;" 

which, though in some respects inferior to what are called the 
higher species of poetry, yields to none in force, ardor, and 
sometimes even in dignity and solemnity. Its amazing power 
in directing the passions, in forming the manners, in maintain- 
ing civil life, and particularly in exciting and cherishing that 
generous elevation of sentiment on which the very existence 
of public virtue seems to depend, will be sufficiently apparent 
by only contemplating those monuments of genius which 
Greece has bequeathed to posterity. If we examine the poems 
of Pindar, how exquisite must have been the pleasure, how 
vivid the sensation to the Greek, whose ordinary amusement it 
was to sing, or hear them sung ! For, this kind of entertain- 
ment was not confined to persons of taste and learning, but had 
grown into general use. When he heard his gods, his heroes, 



606 LOWTH. [gEORGE III. 

his ancestors received into the number of the gods, celebrated 
in a manner so glorious, so divine, would not his bosom glow 
with the desire of fame, with the most fervid emulation of 
virtue, with a patriotism, immoderate perhaps, but honorable 
and useful in the highest degree? Is it wonderful, that he 
should be so elevated with this greatness of mind, (shall I call 
it?) or rather insolence and pride, as to esteem every other 
people mean, barbarous, and contemptible, in comparison with 
himself and his own countrymen? It is certainly unneces- 
sary to remind the scholar, that in the sacred games which 
afforded so much support to the warlike virtue of Greece, no 
inconsiderable share of dignity and esteem resulted from the 
verses of the poets ; nor did the Olympic crown exhibit a more 
ample reward to the candidate for victory, than the encomium 
of Pindar or Stesichorus. What a spirited defender of the 
laws and constitution of his country is Alcaeus ! what a vigor- 
ous opposer of tyrants ! who consecrated equally his sword 
and his lyre on the altar of freedom ! whose prophetic muse, 
ranging through every region, acted as the sacred guardian, not 
for the present moment only, but for future ages ; not of his 
own city alone, but of the whole commonwealth of Greece. 
Poetry such as this, so vehement, so animated, is certainly to 
be esteemed highly efficacious, as well in exciting the human 
mind to virtue, as in purifying it from every mean and vicious 
propensity ; but still more especially does it conduce to cherish 
and support that vigor of soul, that generous temper and spirit, 
which is both the offspring and guardian of liberty. 

Thus far poetry must be allowed to stand eminent among 
the other liberal arts ; inasmuch as it refreshes the mind when 
it is fatigued, soothes it when it is agitated, relieves and in- 
vigorates it when it is depressed ; as it elevates the thoughts to 
the admiration of what is beautiful, what is becoming, what is 
great and noble : nor is it enough to say, that it delivers the 
precepts of virtue in the most agreeable manner ; it insinuates 
or instils into the soul the very principles of morality itself. 
Moreover, since the desire of glory, innate in man, appears to 
be the most powerful incentive to great and heroic actions, it is 
the peculiar function of poetry to improve this bias of our 
nature, and thus to cherish and enliven the embers of virtue : 
and since one of the principal employments of poetry consists 
in the celebration of great and virtuous actions, in transmitting 
to posterity the examples of the bravest and most excellent 
men, and in consecrating their names to immortality ; this 
praise is certainly its due, that while it forms the mind to habits 



1760-1820.] WARTON. 607 

of rectitude by its precepts, directs it by examples, excites and 
animates it by its peculiar force, it has also the distinguished 
honor of distributing to virtue the most ample and desirable 
rewards of its labors. 

But, after all, we shall think more humbly of poetry than it 
deserves, unless we direct our attention to that quarter where 
its importance is most eminently conspicuous ; unless we con- 
template it as employed on sacred subjects, and in subservience 
to religion. This indeed appears to have been the original 
office and destination of poetry; and this it still so happily 
performs, that in all other cases it seems out of character, as if 
intended for this purpose alone. In other instances poetry 
appears to want the assistance of art, but in this to shine forth 
with all its natural splendor, or rather to be animated by that 
inspiration, which, on other occasions, is spoken of without 
being felt. These observations are remarkably exemplified in 
the Hebrew poetry, than which the human mind can conceive 
nothing more elevated, more beautiful, or more elegant; in 
which the almost ineffable sublimity of the subject is fully 
equalled by the energy of the language and the dignity of the 
style. And it is worthy observation, that as some of these 
writings exceed in antiquity the fabulous ages of Greece, in 
sublimity they are superior to the most finished productions of 
that polished people. Thus, if the actual origin of poetry be 
inquired after, it must of necessity be referred to rehgion. Of 
this origin poetry even yet exhibits no obscure indications, 
since she ever embraces a divine and sacred subject with a kind 
of filial tenderness and affection. To the sacred haunts of 
religion she delights to resort as to her native soil : there she 
most willingly inhabits, and there she flourishes in all her 
pristine beauty and vigor. 



THOMAS WARTON, 1728-1790. 

Thomas Warton, the learned author of the " History of English Poetry," 
was born at Basingstoke' in 1728, of a family remarkable for its talent. His 
father, Rev. Thomas Warton, was professor of poetry at Oxford, and died 
in 1745 : and his brother Joseph was the author of the " Essay on the Writ- 
ings and Genius of Pope." Thomas was educated at Cambridge, and early 
acquired distinction by the superiority of his poetical productions. In 1754 

* In Southampton county, about 45 miles W. S. W. of London. 



608 WARTON. [gEORGE III. 

he published his " Observations on the Faerie Queene of Spenser," which at 
once established his reputation for true poetic taste, and for extensive and 
varied learning. In 1757 he was elected to the professorship of poetry in 
Pembroke College, the duties of which office he discharged with remarka- 
ble ability and success. In 1774 he published his first volume of "The 
History of English Poetry:" a second volume appeared in 1778, and a third 
in 1781. Into this very elaborate performance Warton poured the accumu- 
lated stores of a lifetime of reading and reflection : the survey he has given 
us of his subject is accordingly both eminently comprehensive in its scope, 
and rich and varied in its details: and as respects early English Literature, 
it is a repository of information altogether unapproached in extent and abund- 
ance by any other single work of the same kind in the language. The 
work is, however, brought down to but very little beyond the commence- 
ment of the reign of EUzabeth, as he died while engaged in it, in May, 1790. 
It is deeply to be regretted that he had not carried the history of our Litera- 
ture through the reign of Elizabeth, as no one has presumed to continue the 
work ; for to continue it with like success, would require the union of like 
powers — a combination rarely given to man. 

THE HAMLET. AN ODE. 

The hinds how blest, who ne'er beguiled 
To quit their hamlet's hawthorn wild, 
Nor haunt the crowd, nor tempt the main, 
For splendid care, and guilty gain! 

When morning's twilight-tinctured, beam 
Strikes their low thatch with slanting gleam. 
They rove abroad in ether blue, 
To dip the scythe in fragrant dew^ : 
The sheaf to bind, the beech to fell. 
That nodding shades a craggy dell. 

INIidst gloomy glades, in warbles clear, 
"Wild nature's sweetest notes they hear : 
On green untrodden banks they view 
The hyacinth's neglected hue : 
In their lone haunts, and woodland rounds. 
They spy the squirrel's airy bounds ; 
And startle from her ashen spray, 
Across the glen, the screaming jay: 
Each native charm their steps explore 
Of Solitude's sequester'd store. 

For them the moon with cloudless ray 

^lounts, to iUume their homeward w-ay : 

Their weary spirits to relieve. 

The meadow's incense breathe at eve. 

No riot mars the simple fare. 

That o'er a glimmering hearth they share : 

But when the curfew's measured roar 

Duly, the darkening valleys o'er, 



1760-1820.] WARTON. 609 



Has echoed from the distant town, 
They wish no beds of cygnet-down, 
No trophied canopies, to close 
Their drooping eyes in quick repose. 

Their little sons, who spread the bloom 
Of health around the clay-built room. 
Or through the primrosed coppice stray, 
Or gambol in the new-mown hay ; 
Or quaintly braid the cowslip-twine, 
Or drive afield the tardy kinej 
Or hasten from the sultry hill. 
To loiter at the shady rill ; 
Or climb the tall pine's gloomy crest. 
To rob the raven's ancient nest. 

Their humble porch with honey 'd flowers 
The curling -woodbine's shade embowers : 
From the small garden's thymy mound 
Their bees in busy swarms resound: 
Nor fell Disease, before his time, 
Hastes to consume life's golden prime : 
But when their temples long have wore 
The silver crown of tresses hoar, 
As studious still calm peace to keep, 
Beneath a flowery turf they sleep. 



THE CRUSADE. AN ODE. 

Bound for holy Palestine, 

Nimbly we brush'd the level brine. 

All in azure steel array'd : 

O'er the wave our weapons play'd. 

And made the dancing billows glow ; 

High upon the trophied prow. 

Many a warrior-minstrel swung 

His sounding harp, and boldly sung: 

" Syrian virgins, wail and weep, 
English Richard* ploughs the deep ! 
Tremble, watchmen, as ye spy 
From distant towers, with anxious eye, 
The radiant range of shield and lance 
Down Damascus' hills advance : 
From Sion's turrets, as afar 
Ye ken the march of Europe's war! 
Saladin,2 thou paynim^ king, 
From Albion's isle revenge we bring! 



* Richard, Richard I., surnamed, from his valor, CoEur de Lion. 

2 Saladin, the chief of the Mohammedans that defended Palestine against 
the Crusaders. 

3 Paynim, pagan ; it means, here, the professor of a false religion. 

39 



610 WARTON. [gEORGE III. 

On Aeon's' spiry citadel, 

Though to the gale thy banners swell, 

Pictured with the silver moon, 

England shall end thy glory soon ! 

In vain to break our firm array. 

Thy brazen drums hoarse discord bray: 

Those sounds our rising fury fan : 

English Richard in the van, 

On to victory we go, — 

A vaunting infidel the foe !" 

BlondeF led the tuneful band, 
And swept the lyre with glowing hand. 
Cypress, from her rocky mound. 
And Crete, with piny verdure crown'd. 
Far along the smiling main 
Echoed the prophetic strain. 

Soon we kiss'd the sacred earth 
That gave a murder'd Saviour birth ! 
Then with ardor fresh endued. 
Thus the solemn song renew'd: 

" Lo, the toilsome voyage past, 
Heaven's favor'd hills appear at last ! 
Object of our holy vow. 
We tread the Tyrian valleys now. 
From Carmel's almond-shaded steep 

We feel the cheering fragrance creep : 

O'er Engaddi's^ shrubs of balm 

Waves the date-empurpled palm: 

See Lebanon's aspiring head 

Wide his immortal umbrage spread ! 

Hail Calvary, thou mountain hoar, 

Wet with our Redeemer's gore ! 

Ye trampled tombs, ye fanes forlorn, 

Ye stones, by tears of pilgrims worn ; 

Your ravish'd honors to restore, 

Fearless we climb this hostile shore ! 

And, thou, the sepulchre of God, 

By mocking pagans rudely trod, 

Bereft of every awful rite. 

And quench'd thy lamps thai beam'd so bright: 

For thee, from Britain's distant coast, 

Lo, Richard leads his faithful host! 

Aloft in his heroic hand. 

Blazing like the beacon's brand, 

O'er the far-affrighted fields, 

Resistless Kaliburn* he wields. 

* Aeon, anciently called Ptolemais, now St. Jean d'Acre. 
2 Blondel, the faithful minstrel of King Richard. 

^ Engaddi, a mountain of Palestine. 

* Kaliburn, the celebrated sword of the British king, Arthur, said to have 
come into the possession of King Richard, and to have been given by him, as 
a present of inestimable value, to Tancred, King of Sicily. 



1760-1820.] ROBERTSON. 611 

Proud Saracen, pollute no more 

The shrines by martyrs built of yore ! 

From each wild mountain's trackless crown 

In vain thy gloomy castles frown : 

Thy battering-engines, huge and high. 

In vain our steel-clad steeds defy ; 

And, rolling in terrific state, 

On giant-wheels harsh thunders grate. 

When eve has hush'd the buzzing camp, 

Amid the moonlight vapors damp, 

Thy necromantic forms, in vain, 

Haunt us on the tented plain : 

We bid those spectre-shapes avaunt, 

Ashtaroth^ and Termagaunt '.^ 

With many a demon, pale of hue, 

Doom'd to drink the bitter dew 

That drops from Macon's'^ sooty tree, 

'Mid the dread grove of ebony. 

Nor magic charms, nor fiends of hell, 

The Christian's holy courage quell. 

"Salem, in ancient majesty 
Arise, and lift thee to the sky ! 
Soon on the battlements divine 
Shall wave the badge of Constantine. 
Ye barons to the sun unfold 
Our cross, with crimson wove and gold!" 



WILLIAM ROBERTSON, 1721—1793. 

William Robertson, the celebrated historian, was born at Bosthwick, in 
the county of Mid-Lothian, Scotland, on the 8th of September, 1721. At 
the early age of twelve he obtained admission into the University, where 
his subsequent progress in learning was rapid, in proportion to the astonish- 
ing acquirements of his childhood. On entering the ministry of the estab- 
lished church of Scotland, he performed the duties of his station with 
exemplary diligence, and in 1759, by the pubHcation of the " History of 
Scotland," he commenced that series of admirable histories, which have 
justly placed him among the very first historical writers of his country. In 
1769 he published his " History of Charles V.," which raised his then in- 
creasing reputation still higher, and which from the general interest belong- 
ing to the subject, was very popular. The introductory part consists of an 
able sketch of the political and social state of Europe at the time of the 

* Ashtaroth, a Syrian goddess. 

'^ Termagaunt. The ignorant old chroniclers believed that the Mohammed- 
ans were idolaters, and that they worshipped some deity named Termagaunt. 

=» Macon. This alludes to an oriental superstition respecting a poisonous 
tree. 



612 ROBERTSON. [gEORGE IH. 

accession of Charles V./ a most important period, which forms the connec- 
tion between the middle ages, and the history of modern European society 
and politics. In 1777 he published his " History of America," and in 179J, 
" An Historical Disquisition concerning the Knowledge which the Ancients 
had of India." After spending a life of equal piety, usefulness, and honor, 
he died on the 11th of June, 1793. 

Most of the works of Dr. Robertson relate to that important period, when 
the countries of Europe were beginning to form constitutions, and act upon 
the political systems by which they are still preserved. His style is easy 
and flowing, his language correct, his opinions enlightened, his investigation 
diligent, and his expressions temperate. Hume, notwithstanding the differ- 
ence of their religious opinions, greatly extolled his History of Scotland; 
and Gibbon has borne ample testimony both to his accuracy and his style.^ 



RESIGNATION OF CHARLES V. 

Charles resolved to resign his kingdoms to his son, with a 
solemnity suitable to the importance of the transaction ; and to 
perform this last act of sovereignty with such formal pomp, as 
might leave an indelible impression on the minds, not only of 
his subjects, but of his successor. With this view, he called 
Philip out of England, where the peevish temper of his queen, 
which increased with her despair of having issue, rendered him 
extremely unhappy; and the jealousy of the English left him 
no hopes of obtaining the direction of their affairs. Having 
assembled the states of the Low Countries, at Brussels, on the 
25th of October, 1555, Charles seated himself, for the last time, 
in the chair of state ; on one side of which was placed his son, 
and on the other his sister, the Queen of Hungary, Regent of 
the Netherlands; with a splendid retinue of the grandees of 
Spain, and princes of the empire, standing behind him. The 
president of the council of Flanders, by his command, explained 
in a few words, his intention in calling this extraordinary meet- 
ing of the states. He then read the instrument of resignation, 

^ Charles V., Emperor of Germany (1519 — 1555), and King of Spain (1516 — 
1555), was the most influential and prominent monarch of the period in which 
he flourished. Some of the sovereigns cotemporary with him, were Henry 
VIII. of England (1509 — 1547), Francis I. of France (1515 — 1547), Gustavus 
Vasa of Sweden (1523 — 1560), and Soliman, the Magnificent, of the Ottoman 
Empire (1520 — 1566), under whom the Turkish power attained its highest 
pitch. 

2 "The perfect composition, the nervous language, the well-turned periods 
of Dr. Robertson, inflamed me to the ambitious hope that I might one day 
tread in his footsteps: the calm philosophy, the careless, inimitable beauties 
of his friend and rival, Hume, often forced me to close the volume with a 
mixed sensation of delight and despair." — Gibbon^s Memoirs, Chap. v. 



1760-1820.] ROBERTSON. 613 

by ^vhich Charles surrendered to his son Philip all his terri- 
tories, jurisdiction, and authority in the Low Countries ; ab- 
solving his subjects there from their oath of allegiance to him, 
which he required them to transfer to Philip, his lawful heir, 
and to serve him with the same loyalty and zeal which they 
had manifested, during so long a course of years, in support of 
his government. 

Charles then rose from his seat, and, leaning on the shoulder 
of the Prince of Orange, because he was unable to stand with- 
out support, he addressed himself to the audience, and, from a 
paper which he held in hand, in order to assist his memory, he 
recounted \vith dignity, but without ostentation, all the great 
things which he had undertaken and performed since the com- 
mencement of his administration. He observed, that, from the 
seventeenth year of his age, he had dedicated all his thoughts 
and attention to public objects ; reserving no portion of his time 
for the indulgence of his ease, and very little for the enjoyment 
of private pleasure : that, either in a pacific or hostile manner, 
he had visited Germany nine times, Spain six times, France 
four times, Italy seven times, the Low Countries ten times, 
England twice, Africa as often, and had made eleven voyages 
by sea; that while his health permitted him to discharge his 
duty, and the vigor of his constitution was equal, in any degree, 
to the arduous office of governing such extensive dominions, he 
had never shunned labor, nor repined under fatigue : that now, 
when his health was broken, and his vigor exhausted by the 
rage of an incurable distemper, his growing infirmities admon- 
ished him to retire ; nor was he so fond of reigning, as to retain 
the sceptre in an impotent hand, which was no longer able to 
protect his subjects, or to render them happy : that, instead of 
a sovereign worn out with diseases, and scarcely half alive, he 
gave them one in the prime of life, accustomed already to govern, 
and who added to the vigor of youth, all the attention and 
sagacity of maturer years : that if, during the course of a long 
administration, he had committed any material error in govern- 
ment; or if, under the pressure of so many and great affairs, 
and amidst the attention which he had been obliged to give to 
them, he had either neglected, or injured any of his subjects ; 
he now implored their forgiveness : that for his part, he should 
ever retain a grateful sense of their fidelity and attachment, and 
would carry the remembrance of it along with him to the place 
of his retreat, as his sweetest consolation, as well as the best 
reward for all his services; and, in his last prayers to Almighty 
God, would pour forth his ardent wishes for tlieir welfare. 



614 ROBERTSON. [gEORGE III. 

Then turning towards Philip, who fell on his knees and 
kissed his father's hand, " If," says he, " I had left you, by my 
death, this rich inheritance, to which I have made such large 
additions, some regard would have been justly due to my 
memory, on that account: but now, when I voluntarily resign 
to you what I might still have retained, I may well expect the 
warmest expressions of thanks on your part. With these, 
however, I dispense ; and shall consider your concern for the 
welfare of your subjects, and your love of them, as the best and 
most acceptable testimony of your gratitude to me. It is in 
your power, by a wise and virtuous administration, to justify 
the extraordinary proof which I this day give of my paternal 
affection, and to demonstrate that you are worthy of the con- 
fidence which I repose in you. Preserve an inviolable regard 
for religion; maintain the Catholic faith in its purity; let the 
laws of your country be sacred in your eyes ; encroach not on 
the rights and privileges of your people ; and, if the time shall 
ever come, when you shall wish to enjoy the tranquillity of 
private life, may you have a son endowed with such qualities, 
that you can resign your sceptre to him with as much satisfac- 
tion as I give up mine to you." 

As soon as Charles had finished this long address to his 
subjects, and to their new sovereign, he sunk into the chair, 
exliausted, and ready to faint with the fatigue of such an extra- 
ordinary effort. During his discourse, the whole audience 
melted into tears; some, from admiration of his magnanimity, 
others, softened by the expression of tenderness towards his 
son, and of love to his people ; and all were affected with the 
deepest sorrow, at losing a sovereign who had distinguished the 
Netherlands, his native country, with particular marks of his 
regard and attachment. 

A few weeks afterwards, Charles, in an assembly no less 
splendid, and with a ceremonial equally pompous, resigned to 
his son the crowns of Spain, with all the territories depending 
on them, both in the Old and in the New World. Of all these 
vast possessions he reserved nothing for himself, but an annual 
pension of a hundred thousand crowns, to defray the charges 
of his family, and to afford him a small sum for acts of bene- 
ficence and charity. 

The place he had chosen for his retreat, was the monastery 
of St. Justus, in the province of Estramadura. It was seated 
in a vale of no great extent, watered by a small brook, and sur- 
rounded by rising grounds, covered with lofty trees. From the 
nature of the soil, as well as the temperature of the climate, it 



1760-1820.] ROBERTSON. 615 

was esteemed the most healthful and delicious situation in 
Spain. Some months before his resignation he had sent an 
architect thither, to add a new apartment to the monastery, for 
his accommodation ; but he gave strict orders that the style of 
the building should be such as suited his present situation, 
rather than his former dignity. It consisted only of six rooms ; 
four of them in the form of friars' cells, with naked walls ; the 
other two, each twenty feet square, were hung with brown 
cloth, and furnished in the most simple manner. They were 
all on a level with the ground, with a door on one side into a 
garden, of which Charles himself had given the plan, and which 
he had filled with various plants, intending to cultivate them 
with his own hands. 



COLUMBUS DISCOVERING AMERICA. 

The presages of discovering land were now so numerous and 
promising that he deemed them infallible. For some days the 
sounding line reached the bottom, and the soil which it brought 
up indicated land to be at no great distance. The flocks of 
birds increased, and were composed not only of sea-fowl, but 
of such land birds as could not be supposed to fly far from the 
shore. The crew of the Pinta observed a cane floating, which 
seemed to have been newly cut, and likewise a piece of timber 
artificially carved. The sailors aboard the Nigna took up the 
branch of a tree with red berries perfectly fresh. The clouds 
around the setting sun assumed a new appearance ; the rir 
was more mild and warm, and during night the wind became 
unequal and variable. From all these symptoms Columbus 
was so confident of being near land, that on the evening of the 
eleventh of October, after public prayers for success, he ordered 
the sails to be furled, and the ships to lie to, keeping strict watch 
lest they should be driven ashore in the night. During this 
interval of suspense and expectation, no man shut his eyes; all 
kept upon deck, gazing intently towards that quarter where 
they expected to discover the land, which had so long been the 
object of their wishes. 

About two hours before midnight, Columbus, standing on the 
forecastle, observed a light at a distance, and privately pointed 
it out to Pedro Guttierez, a page of the queen's wardrobe. 
Guttierez perceived it, and calling to Salcedo, comptroller of the 
fleet, all three saw it in motion, as if it were carried from place 
to place. A little after midnight, the joyful sound of land! 
land! was heard from the Pinta, which kept always a-head of 



616 ROBERTSON. [gEORGE III. 

the other ships. But having been so often deceived by falla- 
cious appearances, every man was now become slow of belief, 
and waited in all the anguish of uncertainty and impatience for 
the return of day. As soon as morning dawned, all doubts and 
fears were dispelled. From every ship an island was seen 
about two leagues to the north, whose flat and verdant fields, 
well stored with wood, and watered with many rivulets, pre- 
sented the aspect of a delightful country. The crew of the 
Pinta instandy began the Te Deum, as a hymn of thanksgiving 
to God, and were joined by those of the other ships with tears 
of joy and transports of congratulation. This office of gratitude 
to Heaven was followed by an act of justice to their commander. 
They threw themselves at the feet of Columbus, with feelings 
of self-condemnation, mingled with reverence. They implored 
him to pardon their ignorance, incredulity, and insolence, which 
had created him so much unnecessary disquiet, and had so often 
obstructed the prosecution of his well-concerted plan ; and pass- 
ing, in the warmth of their admiration, from one extreme to 
another, they now pronounced the man whom they had so 
lately reviled and threatened, to be a person inspired by Heaven 
with sagacity and fortitude more than human, in order to accom- 
plish a design so far beyond the ideas and conception of all 
former ages. 

As soon as the sun arose, all their boats were manned and 
armed. They rowed towards the island with their colors dis- 
played, with warlike music, and other martial pomp. As they 
approached the coast, they saw it covered with a multitude of 
people, whom the novelty of the spectacle had drawn together, 
whose attitudes and gestures expressed wonder and astonish- 
ment at the strange objects which presented themselves to their 
view. Columbus was the first European who set foot on the 
new world which he had discovered. He landed in a rich 
dress, and with a naked sword in his hand. His men followed, 
and, kneeling down, they all kissed the ground which they had 
so long desired to see. They next erected a crucifix, and pros- 
trating themselves before it, returned thanks to God for con- 
ducting their voyage to such a happy issue. They then took 
solemn possession of the country for the crown of Castile and 
Leon, with all the formalities which the Portuguese were ac- 
customed to observe in acts of this kind in their new discoveries. 



1760-1820.] GIBBON. 617 



EDWARD GIBBON, 1737—1794. 

Of the life of Edward Gibbon, the learned author of " The History of 
the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," it will not be necessary for us 
to give any sketch of our own, as he himself has given us such an admirable 
one, in his work entitled, " Memoirs of My Life and Writings."* From it, 
we make the following extracts, which, meagre as they are, will but serve, 
we trust, to excite in those of our readers who have not seen it, sufficient 
curiosity to desire to make themselves familiar with the work itself/ 

His Birth. I was born at Putney, in the county of Surrey, 
the 27th of April, in the year one thousand seven hundred and 
thirty-seven ; the first child of the marriage of Edward Gibbon, 
Esq., and of Judith Porten. My lot might have been that of a 
slave, a savage, or a peasant ; nor can I reflect without pleasure 
on the bounty of Nature, which cast my birth in a free and 
civilized country, in an age of science and philosophy, in a 
family of honorable rank, and decently endowed with the gifts 
of fortune. * * So feeble was my constitution, so precari- 
ous my life, that, in the baptism of my brothers, my father's 
prudence successively repeated my Christian name of Edward, 
that, in case of the departure of the eldest son, this patronymic 
appellation might be still perpetuated in the family. To pre- 
serve and rear so frail a being, the most tender assiduity was 
scarcely sufficient: the care of my mind was too frequently 
neglected for the care of my health : compassion always sug- 
gested an excuse for the indulgence of the master, or the idle- 
ness of the pupil ; and the chain of my education was broken, 
as often as I was recalled from the school of learning to the 
bed of sickness. 

His Education. Death of his Mother. As soon as the use 
of speech had prepared my infant reason for the admission of 

* The writer of a very able criticism on Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, in 
the Quarterly Review, (vol. xii, p. 375,) thus felicitously and justly charac- 
terizes the life of Gibbon. " It is, perhaps, the best specimen of Autobiogra- 
phy in the English language. Descending from the lofty level of his History, 
and relaxing the stately march which he maintains throughout that work, into 
a more natural and easy pace, this enchanting writer, with an ease, spirit, and 
vigor peculiar to himself, conducts his readers through a sickly childhood, a 
neglected and desultory education, and a youth wasted in the unpromising 
and unscholarlike occupation of a militia officer, to the period when he reso- 
lutely applied the energies of his genius to a severe course of voluntary study, 
which in the space of a few years rendered him a consummate master of 
Roman antiquity, and lastly produced the 'History of the Decline and Fall of 
the Roman Empire.' " 



618 GIBBON. [gEORGE III. 

knowledge, I was taught the arts of reading, writing, and arith- 
metic. In my childhood I was praised for the readiness with 
which I could multiply and divide, by memory alone, two sums 
of several figures : such praise encouraged my youthful talent. 
At the age of seven I Avas delivered into the hands of Mr. 
John Kirkly, who exercised, about eighteen months, the ofiice 
of domestic tutor. In my ninth year I was sent to Kingston- 
upon-Thames, to a school of about seventy boys, which was 
kept by Dr. Wooddeson. My studies were too frequently in- 
terrupted by sickness ; and after a residence here of nearly two 
years, I was recalled, December, 1747, by my mother's death. 
I was too young to feel the importance of my loss ; and the 
image of her person and conversation is faintly imprinted in my 
memory. My poor father was inconsolable. I can never for- 
get the scene of our first interview, some weeks after the fatal 
event; the awful silence, the room hung with black, the mid- 
day tapers, his sighs and tears ; his praises of my mother, a 
saint in heaven; his solemn adjuration that I would cherish her 
memory and imitate her virtues ; and the fervor with which he 
kissed and blessed me as the sole surviving pledge of their loves. 

In his twelfth year he went to Westminster School, where he resided for 
three years, and then went to Oxford. His reading while here was very 
multifarious and extensive, but, turning papist, his father removed him at 
the age of sixteen and sent him to Lausanne, in Switzerland, and placed him 
under the tuition of a Calvinistic minister, by the name of Pavilliard. Here 
he spent five years, during which time he made astonishing proficiency in 
his studies, and he ever spoke of his excellent instructor in terms of the 
highest affection and respect. He thus speaks of 

His First Love. I hesitate, from the apprehension of ridi- 
cule, when I approach the delicate subject of my early love. 
By this word I do not mean the polite attention, the gallantry, 
without hope or design, which has originated in the spirit of 
chivalry, and is interwoven with the texture of French man- 
ners. I understand by this passion the union of desire, friend- 
ship, and tenderness, w^hich is inflamed by a single female, 
which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her 
possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of our being. 
I need not blush at recollecting the object of my choice ; and 
though my love was disappointed of success, I am rather proud 
that I was once capable of feeling such a pure and exalted 
sentiment. The personal attractions of Mademoiselle Susan 
Curchod were embellished by the virtues and talents of the 
mind. Her fortune was humble, but her family was respecta- 



1760-1820.] GIBBON. 619 

ble. Her mother, a native of France, had preferred her religion 
to her country. The profession of her father did not extinguish 
the moderation and philosophy of his temper, and he lived 
content, with a small salary and laborious duty, in the obscure 
lot of minister of Grassy, in the mountains that separate the 
Pays de Vaud from the county of Burgundy. In the solitude 
of a sequestered village he bestowed a liberal and even learned 
education on his only daughter. She surpassed his hopes by 
her proficiency in the sciences and languages ; and in her short 
visits to some relations at Lausanne, the wit, the beauty, and 
erudition of Mademoiselle Curchod were the theme of univer- 
sal applause. The report of such a prodigy awakened my 
curiosity; I saw and loved. I found her learned without 
pedantry, lively in conversation, pure in sentiment, and elegant 
in manners ; and the first sudden emotion was fortified by the 
habits and knowledge of a more familiar acquaintance. She 
permitted me to make her two or three visits at her father's 
house. I passed some happy days there, in the mountains of 
Burgundy, and her parents honorably encouraged the connec- 
tion. In a calm retirement the gay vanity of youth no longer 
fluttered in her bosom ; she listened to the voice of truth and 
passion ; and I might presume to hope that I had made some 
impression on a virtuous heart. At Grassy and Lausanne I 
indulged my dream of felicity : but on my return to England, I 
soon discovered that my father would not hear of this strange 
alliance, and that without his consent I was myself destitute 
and helpless. After a painful struggle I yielded to my fate : I 
sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son ; my wound was insensibly 
healed by time, absence, and the habits of a new life. My cure 
was accelerated by a faithful report of the tranquillity and cheer- 
fulness of the lady herself; and my love subsided in friendship 
and esteem. The minister of Grassy soon afterwards died ; 
his stipend died with him ; his daughter retired to Geneva, 
where, by teaching young ladies, she earned a hard subsistence 
for herself and her mother; but in her lowest distress she 
maintained a spotless reputation, and a dignified behavior. A 
rich banker of Paris, a citizen of Geneva, had the good fortune 
and good sense to discover and possess this inestimable trea- 
sure ; and in the capital of taste and luxury she resisted the 
temptations of wealth, as she had sustained the hardships of 
indigence. The genius of her husband has exalted him to the 
most conspicuous station in Europe. In every change of pros- 
perity and disgrace he has reclined on the bosom of a faithful 
friend; and Mademoiselle Gurchod is now the wife of jNI. 



620 GIBBOX. [gEORGE III. 

Necker, the minister, and perhaps the legislator, of the French 
monarchy.' 

After spending nearly five years at Lausanne, he returned to England in 
May, 1758. The following is his account of 

His Interview with his Father. It was not without some 
awe and apprehension that I approached the presence of my 
father. My infancy, to speak the truth, had been neglected at 
home ; the severity of his look and language at our last parting 
still dwelt on my memory ; nor could I form any notion of his 
character or my probable reception. They were both more 
agreeable than I could expect. The domestic discipline of our 
ancestors has been relaxed by the philosophy and softness of 
the age ; and if my father remembered that he had trembled 
before a stern parent, it was only to adopt with his own son an 
opposite mode of behavior. He received me as a man and a 
friend ; all constraint was banished at our first interview, and 
we ever afterwards continued on the same terms of easy and 
equal politeness. He applauded the success of my education ; 
every word and action was expressive of the most cordial 
affection ; and our lives would have passed without a cloud, if 
his economy had been equal to his fortune, or if his fortune had 
been equal to his desires. 

The time spent at his father's. Gibbon devoted to study, except about two 
years and a half, in which he was doing duty in a situation which bore no 
affinity to any other period of his studious and social life — as a militia officer. 
Parliament had resolved to raise a national militia, and he and his father 
offered their names as major and captain in the Hampshire regiment. A 
short time before this he had published his first work, " An Essay upon the 
Study of Literature," which was well received. After the militia was dis- 
banded, (December, 1762,) he resumed his studies, and determined to write 
upon some historical subject. He went to Paris, where he passed some 
time — visited Lausanne again, and there studied, preparatory to his Italian 
journey — travelled into Italy and returned to England in 1765. In 1770 he 
lost his father ; and as soon as he could after this event, he arranged his cir- 
cumstances so as to settle in London. The following is his account of 

His Publication of his History. No sooner was I seltled 
in my house and library, than I undertook the composition of 
the first volume of my history. At the outset all was dark and 
doubtful — even the title of the work, the true era of the Decline 
and Fall of the Empire, the limits of the introduction, the divi- 

' It is curious to speculate on the effect which an union with a female of 
such pure dignity of character and calm religious principle, might have had 
on the character and opinions of Gibbon. 



1760-1820.] GIBBON. 621 

sion of the chapters, and the order of the narrative ; and I was 
often tempted to cast away the labor of seven years. The 
style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the 
choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Many 
experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone be- 
tween a dull chronicle and a rhetorical declamation : three times 
did I compose the first chapter, and twice the second and third, 
before I was tolerably satisfied with their effect. In the remain- 
der of the way I advanced with a more equal and easy pace ; 
but the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters have been reduced, by 
three successive revisals, from a large volume to their present 
size ; and they might still be compressed without any loss of 
facts or sentiments. An opposite fault may be imputed to the 
concise and superficial narrative of the first reigns, from Com- 
modus to Alexander ; a fault of which I have never heard, 
except from Mr. Hume in his last journey to London. Such 
an oracle might have been consulted and obeyed with rational 
devotion ; but I was soon disgusted with the modest practice 
of reading the manuscript to my friends. Of such friends, some 
will praise from politeness, and some will criticise from vanity. 
The author himself is the best judge of his own performance ; 
no one has so deeply meditated on the subject; no one is so 
sincerely interested in the event. 

The volume of my history, which had been somewhat de- 
layed by the novelty and tumult of a first session, was now 
ready for the press. After the perilous adventure had been 
declined by my friend Mr. Elmsly, I agreed upon easy terms 
with Mr. Thomas Cadell, a respectable bookseller, and Mr. 
William Strahan, an eminent printer; and they undertook the 
care and risk of the publication, which derived more credit from 
the name of the shop than from that of the author. The last 
revisal of the proofs was submitted to my vigilance ; and many 
blemishes of style, which had been invisible in the manuscript, 
were discovered and corrected in the printed sheet. So mode- 
rate were our hopes, that the original impression had been 
stinted to five hundred, till the number was doubled by the 
prophetic taste of Mr. Strahan. During this awful interval I 
was neither elated by the ambition of fame, nor depressed by 
the apprehension of contempt. My diligence and accuracy 
were attested by my own conscience. History is the most 
popular species of writing, since it can adapt itself to the highest 
or the lowest capacity. I had chosen an illustrious subject. 
Rome is familiar to the schoolboy and the statesman ; and my 
narrative was deduced from the last period of classical reading. 



622 GIBBON. [gEORGE III. 

I had likewise flattered myself that an age of light and liberty- 
would receive, without scandal, an inquiry into the human 
causes of the progress and establishment of Christianity. i 

After publishing two more volumes of his History, he went to Lausanne, 
the place endeared to him by early recollections, there to settle for the rest of 
his life, and complete his great work. The following are his remarks on 

The Completion of his History. I have presumed to mark 
the moment of conception: I shall now commemorate the hour 
of my final deliverance. It was on the day, or rather night, of 
the 27th of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, 
that I wrote the last lines of the last page, in a summer-house 
in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns 
in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a 
prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air 
was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon 
was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will 
not dissemble the first emotions of joy on recovery of my free- 
dom, and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride 
was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over 
my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of 
an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be 
the future date of my History, the life of the historian must be 
short and precarious. I will add two facts which have seldom 
occurred in the composition of six, or at least of five, quartos. 

* Gibbon's attack on Christianity in his otherwise great work is as mean as 
it is unjust. It is not so much to be wondered at, however, from one who 
considered the Papal church and Christianity as identical. Besides the other 
sins that that church has to answer for, is the no small one of making infidels 
by the scores. But this sin is not confined to that church alone. How many 
clergymen and private Christians are there of other denominations, who, by 
their inconsistent lives, do much to bring the religion which they profess into 
disrepute before the world ! Christianity can never fulfil its great and glorious 
design, until it be carried out and acted upon in all our relations, personal, 
social, business, civil, and political. Men must trade and vote as they pray, 
if they wish not the open or silent scorn of the world. 

Of all Gibbon's correspondents, Mr. Whitaker, the historian of Manchester, 
was the only one who rebuked him for his attack on Christianity. He says in 
a letter to him, " You never speak feebly except when you come upon British 
ground, and never weakly except when you attack Christianity. In the former 
case you seem to me to want information : and in the latter, you plainly want 
the common candor of a citizen of the world for the religious system of your 
country. Pardon me, sir, but, much as I admire your abilities, I cannot bear, 
without indignation, your sarcastic slyness upon Christianity, and cannot see, 
without pity, your determined hostility to the Gospel." On the contrary, the 
Rev. Dr. Robertson highly commended Gibbon's work, without ever alluding 
to the infidel principles it contains. Was this honest? That such a man as 
Hume should bestow upon it unqualified praise, was a matter of course. 



1760-1820.J GIBBON. 623 

1. My first rough manuscript, without any intermediate copy, 
has been sent to the press. 2. Not a sheet has been seen by 
any human eyes excepting those of the author and the printer : 
the faults and the merits are exclusively my own. 



INVENTION AND USE OF GUNPOWDER. 

The only hope of salvation for the Greek empire and the 
adjacent kingdoms, would have been some more powerful 
weapon, some discovery in the art of war, that should give them 
a decisive superiority over their Turkish foes. Such a weapon 
was in their hands ; such a discovery had been made in the 
critical moment of their fate. The chemists of China or Eu- 
rope had found, by casual or elaborate experiments, that a mix- 
ture of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal, produces, with a spark 
of fire, a tremendous explosion. It was soon observed, that if 
the expansive force were compressed in a strong tube, a ball of 
stone or iron might be expelled with irresistible and destructive 
velocity. The precise era of the invention and application of 
gunpowder is involved in doubtful traditions and equivocal lan- 
guage ; yet we may clearly discern that it was known before 
the middle of the fourteenth century ; and that before the end 
of the same, the use of artillery in battles and sieges, by sea 
and land, was familiar to the states of Germany, Italy, Spain, 
France, and England. The priority of nations is of small ac- 
count ; none could derive any exclusive benefit from their pre- 
vious or superior knowledge ; and in the common improve- 
ment, they stood on the same level of relative power and mili- 
tary science. Nor was it possible to circumscribe the secret 
Avithin the pale of the church ; it was disclosed to the Turks 
by the treachery of apostates and the selfish policy of rivals ; 
and the sultans had sense to adopt, and wealth to reward, the 
talents of a Christian engineer. The Genoese, who transported 
Amurath into Europe, must be accused as his preceptors ; and 
it»was probably by their hands that his cannon was cast and 
directed at the siege of Constantinople. The first attempt was 
indeed unsuccessful; but in the general warfare of the age, the 
advantage was on their side who were most commonly the 
assailants ; for a while the proportion of the attack and defence 
was suspended; and this thundering artillery was pointed 
against the walls and towers which had been erected only to 
resist the less potent engines of antiquity. By the Venetians, 
the use of gunpowder was communicated without reproach to 
the sultans of Egypt and Persia, 'their allies against the Ottoman 



624 JONES. [gEORGE III. 

power ; the secret was soon propagated to the extremities of 
Asia; and the advantage of the European was confined to his 
easy victories over the savages of the new world. If we con- 
trast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery with the 
slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of 
peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or 
weep at the folly of mankind. 



SIR WILLIAM JONES, 1746—1794. 

Few names in English literature recall such associations of worth, intel- 
lect, and accomplishments, as that of Sir William Jones. He was born in 
London in 1746. He lost his father, when only three years old, and the care 
of his education devolved upon his mother. "She was a person," says 
Campbell, "of superior endowments, and cultivated his dawning powers 
with a sagacious assiduity, which undoubtedly contributed to their quick 
and surprising growth. We may judge of what a pupil she had, when we 
are told that, at five years of age, one morning, in turning over the leaves of 
a Bible, he fixed his attention with the strongest admiration, on a sublime 
passage in the Revelations. Human nature, perhaps, presents no authentic 
picture of its felicity more pure or satisfactory, than that of such a pupil 
superintended by a mother capable of directing him." 

At the age of seven he went to Harrow school, where he made the most 
astonishing progress in his studies; and at the age of seventeen he went to 
Oxford, his mother going with him, and taking up her residence in the 
town. Here he pursued the study of the Oriental languages which he had 
commenced at Harrow, and on leaving the university, he was, perhaps, pos- 
sessed of as much varied learning as any one who ever took his degree at 
that renowned seat of literature. The same year (1765) he accepted the 
invitation of the Earl of Spencer to become the tutor to his son ; at the same 
time he was constantly adding to his own stores of knowledge. He jour- 
neyed with the family twice upon the continent, and on his return after his 
second tour, in 1771, he resolved to devote himself to the study of the law. 
He had already published a small volume of poems, and two dissertations on 
Oriental literature, and after he was called to the bar, he gave to the world 
a translation of the Greek Orations of Isaeus. He was at this time a mem- 
ber of the Royal Society, and maintained an epistolary correspondence with 
several eminent foreign scholars. 

During the progress of our Revolutionary war. Sir William Jones ex- 
pressed his decided disapprobation of the measures of his own government, 
having no sympathy with that infamous sentiment, " Our country right or 
wrong." Like Lord Chatham, and Burke, and Pitt, and Fox, he did not 
hesitate to rebuke, and rebuke severely, his country, or rather the ruling 
administration, when he deemed its measures to be wrong. But his inflexi- 



1760-1820.J JONES. 625 

ble adherence to correct principles, and to a just line of action, together with 
an " Ode to Liberty," which he had pubUshed, caused him to lose favor 
with those who had offices in their gift, and he did not obtain the situation 
of the judgeship at Fort William, in Bengal, which became vacant in 1780, 
though he was doubtless the most competent person at that time in England 
to fill it. But on a change of administration in 1782, he was appointed to 
this responsible station, and received the honor of knighthood. In April, 
1783, he married Anna Maria Shipley, the daughter of the Bishop of St. 
Asaph, to whom he had been engaged for sixteen years. He immediately 
set sail for India, having secured, as his friend Lord Ashburton congratulated 
him, the two first objects of human pursuit, those of love and ambition. 

In December, 1783, he commenced the discharge of his duties as an In- 
dian judge, with his characteristic ardor ; but it is impossible, in this short 
space, to do any justice to his great labors. He early formed a society of 
which he was the president, for " Inquiring into the History and Antiquities, 
the Arts, Sciences, and Literature of Asia;" and to the "Asiatic Re- 
searches," which this society pubUshed, he himself was the chief contributor. 
The following are some of his papers: " Eleven Anniversary Discourses on 
the different nations of Asia, &c.;" "A Dissertation on the Orthography 
of Asiatic Words in Roman Letters*," " On the Gods of Greece, Italy, and 
India;" " On the Chronology of the Hindoos;" " On the Antiquity of the 
Indian Zodiac;" " On the Mystical Poetry of the Persians and Hindoos ;" 
with very many other treatises of less importance. All these Uterary labors 
he performed when not attending to his official duties, which, for the greater 
part of the year, occupied him seven hours a day. But such labors, enough 
to try the strongest constitution anywhere, were too much for him in the 
debiUtating climate of Bengal ; his health gave way, and he died at Calcutta, 
on the 27th of April, 1794.' 

" In the course of a short life," says Campbell, " Sir William Jones ac- 
quired a degree of knowledge which the ordinary faculties of men, if they 
were blessed with antediluvian longevity, could scarcely hope to surpass. 
His learning threw light on the laws of Greece and India, on the general 
literature of Asia, and on the history of the family of nations. He carried 
philosophy, eloquence, and philanthropy, into the character of a lawyer and 
a judge. Amidst the driest toils of erudition, he retained a sensibiUty to the 
beauties of poetry, and a talent for transfusing them into his own language, 
which has seldom been united with the same degree of industry. When he 
went abroad, it was not to enrich himself whh the spoils of avarice or ambi- 
tion ; but to search, amidst the ruins of oriental literature, for treasures which 
he would not have exchanged 

Tor all Bocara's vaunted gold, 
Or all the gems of Samarcand.' " 

" Sir WiUiam Jones," says his biographer, " seems to have acted on this 
maxim, that whatever had been attained was attainable by him ; and he 

* The best edition of his works is that by Lord Teignmouth, in 13 vols. 
Svo. ; to which is prefixed a well-written life of this illustrious scholar. 
40 



626 JONES. [george hi. 

was never observed to overlook or to neglect any opportunity of adding to 
his accomplishments or to his knowledge. When in India, his studies began 
with the dawn; and, in seasons of intermission from professional duty, con- 
tinued through the day ; while meditation retraced and confirmed what read- 
ing had collected or investigation discovered. By a regular apphcation of 
time to particular occupations, he pursued various objects without confusion ; 
and in undertakings which depended on his individual perseverance, he was 
never deterred by difficulties from proceeding to a successful termination." 
With respect to the division of his time, he had written in India, on a small 
piece of paper, the following lines : — 

Sir Edward Coke. 
Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six, 
Four spend in prayer — the rest on nature fix. 

Rather, 

Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven, 
Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven. 

But we cannot conclude this short sketch of the life of this eminently 
great and good man, whhout adding his beautiful encomium on the Bible. 
Let it also be borne in mind that those peculiar attainments which rendered 
him so fully competent to utter it, were scarcely ever possessed by any other 
man ; for he was not only critically acquainted with the original languages of 
the Bible, but with all the various cognate languages and dialects of the East, 
a knowledge of which imparts new beauty and lustre to that wonderful book. 

I have regularly and attentively read the Holy Scriptures, 
and am of opinion that this volume, independent of its Divine 
origin, contains more sublimity and beauty, more pure morality, 
more important history, and finer strains of poetry and elo- 
quence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever 
language or age they may have been composed/ 



In Imitation of Alccms. 

What constitutes a State 1 
Not high-raised battlements, or labored mound, 

Thick wall or moated gate; 
Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crown'd; 

Nor bays and broad-armed ports, 
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; 

Nor starred and spangled courts, 
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. — 

1 "I am confident," says Sir Richard Steele, "that whoever reads the 
Gospels, with a heart as much prepared in favor of them, as when he sits 
down to Virgil or Homer, will find no passage there which is not told with 
more natural force, than any episode in either of those wits, who were the 
chief of mere mankind." 



1760-1820.] BURNS. 627 

No; — men, high-minded men. 
With powers as far above dull brutes endued, 

In forest, brake, or den. 
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude; 

Men who their duties know, 
But know their rights ; and, knowing, dare maintain, 

Prevent the long-aimed blow. 
And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain : 

These constitute a State ; 
And sovereign Law, that State's collected will, 

High over thrones, and globes elate, 
Sits Empress, crowning good, repressing ill. 

Smit by her sacred frown. 
The fiend Discretion like a vapor sinks ; 

And e'en th' all-dazzling crown 
Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks. 

Such was this heaven-loved isle. 
Than Lesbos fairer, and the Cretan shore ! 

No more shall Freedom smile 1 
Shall Britons languish, and be men no more ? 

Since an must life resign, 
Those sweet rewards which decorate the brave, 

'Tis folly to decline. 
And steal inglorious to the silent grave. 



ROBERT BURNS, 1759-1796. 

Robert Burns, the celebrated Scottish poet, was born in Ayrshire,^ one 
of the western counties of Scotland, January 25, 1759. His father was a 
small farmer, and Robert had no advantages of early education beyond what 
the parish schools afford. But he made the most of what he had; and in 
the possession of discreet, virtuous, and most pious parents, he had the best 
of all education, the education of the heart ; and in the " Cotter's Saturday 
Night," we see what was the foundation of the whole — the Bible. He 
early showed a strong taste for reading; and to the common rudiments of 
education he added some knowledge of mensuration, and a smattering of 
Latin and French. But poetry was his first delight, ^ as it was his chief 
solace through life. A little before his sixteenth year, as he tells us himself, 

' He was born in a clay-built cottage, about two miles to the south of the 
town of Ayr. 

2 " The earliest composition I recollect taking pleasure in," says Burns, 
"was the Vision of Mirza, and a hymn of Addison's, beginning, 'How are 
thy servants blessed, O Lord/' I particularly remember one half stanza which 
was music to my boyish ear, 

' For though in dreadful whirls we hung 
High on the broken wave.'" 
See both of these pieces on pp. 348 and 356. 



628^ BURNS. [george in. 

he had "first committed the sin of rhyme." His verses soon acquired him 
considerable village fame, to which, as he made acquaintances in Ayr and 
other neighboring towns with young men of his own age, he greatly added 
by the remarkable fluency of his expression, and the vigor of his conversa- 
tional powers. The charm of these social meetings, at which he shone with 
so much distinction, gradually introduced him to new habits, some of which 
were most destructive of his happiness and his virtue. 

About this time, to escape the ills of poverty, and to break away from 
some of the associations by which he was surrounded, he resolved to leave 
his native country, and to try his fortune in Jamaica. In order to raise funds 
for this purpose, he resolved to publish a volume of his poems. They were 
received with great favor, and Burns cleared, thereby, twenty pounds. He 
engaged his passage, his chest was on the road to Greenock, from which 
port he was to sail, and he had taken leave of his friends, when a letter from 
Dr. Blacklock to one of the friends of the poet, completely altered his reso- 
lutions. "His opinion," says Burns himself, "that I would meet with 
encouragement in Edinburgh for a second edition of my poems, fired me so 
much, that away I posted for that city, without a single acquaintance, or a 
single letter of introduction."! 

The result was, the introduction of the poet to ail who veere eminent in 
literature, in rank, or in fashion, in the Scottish metropohs. The brilliant 
conversational powers of the unlettered ploughman seem to have struck all 
with whom he came in contact, with as much wonder as his poetry. Under 
the patronage of Dr. Robertson, Professor Dugald Stewart, Mr. Henry 
Mackenzie, and other persons of note, a new edition of his poems was pub- 
lished, which yielded him nearly five hundred pounds. With this he returned, 
in 1788, to Ayrshire — advanced £200 to relieve his aged mother and brother, 
who were struggling with many difficulties on their farm — and with the rest 
prepared to stock another farm for himself, in Dumfrieshire, where he took 
up his abode in June of that year, having before publicly solemnized his 
union with Jean Armour, to whom he had long been attached. 

But the farm did not prosper well, and he obtained the office of excise- 
man or ganger, in the district in which he Uved. In 1791 he abandoned the 
farm entirely, and took a small house in the town of Dumfries. By this 
time, his habits of conviviality had settled down to confirmed intemperance, 
"and almost every drunken fellow, who was wiUing to spend his money 
lavishly in the ale-house, could easily command the company of Burns. 
His Jane still behaved with a degree of maternal and conjugal tenderness 
and prudence, which made him feel more bitterly the evil of his misconduct, 
although they could not reclaim him. At last, crippled, emaciated, having 
the very power of animation wasted by disease, quite broken-hearted by the 
sense of his errors, and of the hopeless miseries in which he saw himself and 
his family depressed, he died at Dumfries on the 21st of July, 1796, when 
only thirty-seven years of age."^ 

' This was in 1786, when he was twenty-seven years old. 
2 Read an interesting sketch of his life in Chambers' Biographical Dictionary 
of Eminent Scotsmen; also Currie's Life, Lockhart's Life, and Cunningham's 



1760-1820.] BURNS. 629 

"Burns," says Professor Wilson, "is by far the greatest poet that ever 
sprung from the bosom of the people, and hved and died in an humble con- 
dition. Indeed, no country in the world but Scotland could have produced 
such a man ; and he will be forever regarded as the glorious representative 
of the genius of his country. He was born a poet, if ever man was, and to 
his native genius alone is owing the perpetuity of his fame. For he mani- 
festly had never very deeply studied poetry as an art, nor reasoned much 
about its principles, nor looked abroad with the wide ken of intellect for 
objects and subjects on which to pour out his inspiration. The condition of 
the peasantry of Scotland, the happiest, perhaps, that Providence ever 
allowed to the children of labor, was not surveyed and speculated upon by 
him as the field of poetry, but as the field of his own existence ; and he 
chronicled the events that passed there, not merely as food for his imagina- 
tion as a poet, but as food for his heart as a man. Hence, when inspired to 
compose poetry, poetry came gushing up from the well of his human affec- 
tions, and he had nothing more to do than to pour it, like streams irrigating 
a meadow, in many a cheerful tide over the drooping flowers, and fading 
verdure of life. Imbued with vivid perceptions, warm feelings, and strong 
passions, he sent his own existence into that of all things, animate and inani- 
mate, around him ; and not an occurrence in hamlet, village, or town, affect- 
ing in any way the happiness of the human heart, but roused as keen an 
interest in the soul of Burns, and as genial a sympathy, as if it had immedi- 
ately concerned himself and his own individual welfare. Most other poets 
of rural life have looked on it through the aerial veil of imagination — often 
beautified, no doubt, by such partial concealment, and beaming with misty 
softness more delicate than the truth. But Burns would not thus indulge 
his fancy where he had felt — felt so poignantly, all the agonies and all the 
transports of life. He looked around him, and when he saw the smoke of 
the cottage rising up quietly and unbroken to heaven, he knew, for he had 
seen and blessed it, the quiet joy and unbroken contentment that slept 
below ; and when he saw it driven and dispersed by the winds, he knew 
also but too well, for too sorely had he felt them, those agitations and dis- 
turbances which had shook him till he wept on his chaff bed. In reading his 
poetry, therefore, we know what unsubstantial dreams are all those of the 
golden age. But bliss beams upon us with a more subduing brightness 
through the dim melancholy that shrouds lowly life ; and when the peasant 
Burns rises up in his might as Burns the poet, and is seen to derive all that 
might from the life which at this hour the peasantry of Scotland are leading, 
our hearts leap within us, because that such is our country, and such the 
nobility of her children. There is no delusion, no affectation, no exaggera- 
tion, no falsehood in the spirit of Burns's poetry. He rejoices like an un- 

Life prefixed to his edition of the poet's works. This is now the most com- 
plete and best edition of Burns, containing 150 pieces more than Dr. Currie's 
edition. Read also the " Genius and Character of Burns," by Professor Wil- 
son, No. XXI. of Wiley and Putnam's Library of Choice Reading. Also, two 
articles in the Edinburgh Review, vol. 13th and vol. 48th, and one in the first 
volume of the London Quarterly. 



630 BURNS. [gEORGE III. 

tamed enthusiast, and he weeps hke a prostrate penitent. In joy and in 
grief the whole man appears : some of his finest effusions were poured out 
before he left the fields of his childhood, and when he scarcely hoped for 
oiher auditors than his own heart, and the simple dwellers of the hamlet. 
He wrote not to please or surprise others — we speak of those first effusions — 
but in bis own creative delight; and even after he had discovered his power 
to kindle the sparks of nature wherever they slumbered, the effect to be 
produced seldom seems to have been considered b)'' him, assured that his 
poetry could not fail io produce the same passion in the hearts of other men 
from which it boiled over in his own. Out of himself, and beyond his own 
nearest and dearest concerns, he well could, but he did not much love often 
or long to go. His imagination wanted not wings broad and strong for 
highest flights. But he was most at home when walking on this earth, 
through this world, even along the banks and braes of the streams of Coila. 
It seems as if his muse were loth to admit almost any thought, feeling, 
or image, drawn from any other region than his native district — the hearth- 
stone of his father's hut — the still or troubled chamber of his own generous 
and passionate bosom. Dear to him the jocund laughter of the reapers on 
the corn-field, the tears and sighs which his own strains had won from the 
children of nature enjoying the mid-day hour of rest beneath the shadow of 
the hedgerow tree. With what pathetic personal power, from all the cir- 
cumstances of his character and condition, do many of his humblest lines 
affect us ! Often, too often, as we hear him singing, we think that we see 
him suffering ! ' Most musical, most melancholy' he often is, even in his 
merriment ! In him, alas ! the transports of inspiration are but too closely 
allied with reality's kindred agonies I The strings of his lyre sometimes 
yield their finest music to the sighs of remorse or repentance. Whatever, 
therefore, be the faults or defects of the poetry of Burns— and no doubt it has 
many — it has, beyond all that was ever written, this greatest of all merits, 
intense, life-pervading, and life-breathing truth." 



TO A XOUXTAIX DAISY, 

Oil turning one down with a plough in April. V 

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower, 
Thou"st met me in an evil hour : 
For I maun crush amang the stoure 

Thy slender stem ; 
To spare thee now is past my power, 

Thou bonie gem. 

Alas ! it's no thy neebor sweet, 
The bonie Larlc, companion meet, 
Bending thee "mang the dewy "weet, 

Wi" spreckled breast, 
When upward-springing, blithe, to greet 

The purpling east. 

Cauld blew the bitter biting north 
Upon thy early, humble birth : 



1760-1820.] BURNS. 631 

Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth 

Amid the storm, 
Scarce rear'd above the parent earth 

Thy tender form. 

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, 
High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield; 
But thou beneath the random bield 

0" clod or stane, 
Adorns the histie slibble-Jield, 

Unseen, alane. 

There, in thy scanty mantle clad, 
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread, 
Thou lifts thy unassuming head 

In humble guise ; 
But now the share uptears thy bed. 

And low thou lies ! 

Such is the fate of artless Maid, 
Sweet floweret of the rural shade! 
By love's simplicity betray'd, 

And guileless trust, 
Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid 

Low i' the dust. 

Such is the fate of simple Bard, 

On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd ! 

Unskilful he to note the card 

Of p7-udent lore, 
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard. 

And whelm him o'er ! 

Such fate to suffering worth is given. 

Who long with wants and woes has striven, 

By human pride or cunning driven 

To misery's brink, 
Till, wrench'd of every stay but Heaven, 

He, ruin'd, sink ! 

Ev"n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, 
That fate is thine — no distant date ; 
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate. 

Full on thy bloom. 
Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight, 

Shall be thy doom. 



TO MARY IN HEAVEN.* 

Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray, 
That lov'st to greet the early morn, 

* This was the first object of his early, pure, impassioned love — Mary 
Campbell, or his " Highland Mary." In his poem beginning, 



632 BURNS. [GEORGE III. 

Again thou usher'st in the day 

jVIy 3Iary from my soul "was torn. 
Mary ! dear departed shade ! 

Where is thy place of blissful rest ? 
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid 1 

Hear'st tliou the groans that rend his breast I 

That sacred hour can I forget, 

Can I forget the hallowed grove, 
Where by the winding Ayr we met, 

To live one day of parting love 1 
Eternity will not efface 

Those records dear of transports past ; 
Thy image at our last embrace! 

Ah, little thought we "twas our last ! 

Ayr gurgling kissed his pebbled shore, 

O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning, green ; 
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar, 

Twin"d amorous round the raptured scene. 
The flowers sprang ^vanton to be prest, 

The birds sang love on every spray, 
'Till too, too soon, the glowing west 

Proclaim"d the speed of winged day. 

Still o'er these scenes my mem"ry wakes, 

And fondly broods with miser care ! 
Time but the impression stronger makes, 

As streams their channels deeper wear. 
My Mary, dear departed shade ! 

Where is thy place of blissful rest? 
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid ? 

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 



THE BEADSMAN OF NITHSIDE. 

Thou whom chance may hither lead, 
Be thou clad in russet weed, 
Be thou decked in silken stole, 
Grave these counsels on thy soul. 

"Ye banks, and braes, and streams around 
The castle o' Montgomerie," 
he describes, in the most beautiful language, their tender and final parting on 
the banks of the Ayr. He intended to marry her, but she died at Greenock 
on her return from a visit to her relations in Argylshire. At a later period of 
life, on the anniversary of that hallowed day when they parted, he devoted a 
night to a poetic vigil in the open air. As evening came " he appeared to 
grow very sad about something," and wandered out of doors into the barn- 
yard, where his Jean found him lying on some straw with his eyes fixed on a 
shining star "like another moon." Thus did he write down, just as it now 
is, in its immortal beauty, this deeply pathetic elegy to the memory of his 
"Highland Mary." 



1760-1820.] BURNS. 633 

Life is but a day at most, 
Sprung from night, in darkness lost; 
Hope not sunshine every hour, 
Fear not clouds will always lower. 

As youth and love with sprightly dance, 
Beneath thy morning star advance, 
Pleasure with her siren air 
May delude the thoughtless pair : 
Let prudence bless enjoyment's cup. 
Then raptur'd sip, and sip it up. 

As thy day grows warm and high, 
Life's meridian flaming nigh. 
Dost thou spurn the humble vale ? 
Life's proud summits would'st thou scale ? 
Check thy climbing step, elate, 
Evils lurk in felon wait : 
Dangers, eagle-pinion'd, bold, 
Soar around each chfiy hold. 
While cheerful peace, with linnet song. 
Chants the lowly dells among. 

As the shades of ev'ning close, 
Beck'ning thee to long repose ; 
As life itself becomes disease, 
Seek the chimney-nook of ease. 
There ruminate with sober thought, 
On all thou"st seen, and heard, and wrought ; 
And teach the sportive younkers round. 
Saws of experience, sage and sound. 
Say, Man's true, genuine estimate, 
The grand criterion of his fate. 
Is not. Art thou high or low 1 
Did thy fortune ebb or flow ? 
Did many talents gild thy span"? 
Or frugal nature grudge thee one? 
Tell them, and press it on their mind. 
As thou thyself must shortly find. 
The smile or frowii of awful Heav'n, 
To virtue or to vice is giv'n. 
Say, To be just, and kind, and wise, 
There solid self-enjoyment lies ; 
That foolish, selfish, faithless ways, 
Lead to the wretched, vile, and base. 

Thus resign'd and quiet, creep 
To the bed of lasting sleep ; 
Sleep, whence thou shalt ne"er awake. 
Night, where dawn shall never break, 
Till future life, future no more. 
To hght and joy the good restore. 
To light and joy unknown before. 



634 BURNS. [GEORGE III. 

Stranger, go ! Heav'n be thy guide ! 
Quod the beadsman of Nithside. 



THE COTTER S SATURDAY NIGHT. 

Inscribed to R. Mken, Esq. 

My lov'd, my honor'd, much respected friend ! 

No mercenary bard his homage pays ; 
With honest pride I scorn each selfish end ; 

My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise : 
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, 

The lowly train in life's sequestered scene ; 
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways ; 

What Aiken in a cottage would have been; 
Ah ! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, I ween. 

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh ; 

The short'ning winter-day is near a close ; 
The miry beasts retreating frae' the pleugh; 

The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose ; 
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes. 

This night his "w^eekly moiP is at an end. 
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, 

Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend. 
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend. 

At length his lonely cot appears in view. 

Beneath the shelter of an aged tree; 
Th' expectant wee^ things, toddlin,4 stacherS thro' 

To meet their dad, wi' flichterin'^ noise an' glee. 
His wee bit ingle,'^ blinking bonily. 

His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's smile, 
The lisping infant prattling on his knee. 

Does a'9 his weary carking'O cares beguile. 
An' maks him quite forget his labor and his toil. 

Belyve" the elder bairns come drappin in, 

At service out, amang the farmers roun'; 
Some ca'J2 the pleugh, some herd, some tentie^s rin 

A cannie'4 errand to a neebor town: 
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, 

In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, 
Comes hame, perhaps, to show a braw^^ new gown, 

Or deposit her sair-won'6 penny-fee,''' 
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. 

' Frae— from. ^ Moil— labor. ^ Wee— little. * Toddlin— tottering 
in their walk. ^ Stacher — stagger. ^ Fljchterin' — fluttering. ' Ingle- 
fire-place. ^ Blinkin — shining at intervals. ^ a' — all. "" Carking — 
consuming. " Belyve — by-and-by. -2 Ca' — drive. ^^ Xentie — cautious. 
^* Cannie — skilful, dexterous. ^5 gravi^ — fine, handsome. ^^ Sair-vi^on — 
sorely won, earned with difficulty. '■ Penny-fee — wages. 



1760-1820.] BURNS. 635 

Wi' joy tinfeign'd, brothers and sisters meet, 

An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers ;i 
The social hours, swift- wing'd, unnoticed fleet ; 

Each tells the uncos^ that he sees or hears ; 
The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years ; 

Anticipation forward points the view ; 
The mother, wi' her needle an' her sheers, 

Gars^ auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; 
The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. 

Their master's and their mistress's command, 

The younkers a' are warned to obey ; 
" An' mind their labors wi' an eydent-* hand, 

An' ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play : 
An', 0! be sure to fear the Lord alway! 

An' mind your duty, duly, ,piorn an' night ! 
Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, 

Liiplore His counsel and assisting might ; 
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright !" 

But hark ! a rap comes gently to the door ; 

Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, 
Tells how a neebor lad cam' o'er the moor. 

To do some errands, and convoy her hame. 
The wily mother sees the conscious flame 

Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek ; 
With heart-struck anxious care, inquires his iiame, 

While Jenny haffiins^ is afraid to speak ; 
Weel pleased the mother hears it's nae wild worthless rake. 

Wi' kindly welcome Jenny brings him ben f 

A strappan'^ youth, he taks the mother's eye; 
Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill-ta'en ; 

The father cracks^ of horses, pleughs, and kye.9 
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, 

But blate'o an' laithfu'," scarce can weel behave ; 
The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy 

What maks the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave, 
Weel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave.'^ 

0, happy love ! where love like this is found ! 

heartfelt raptures ! bliss beyond compare ! 
I've paced much this weary, mortal round. 

And sage experience bids me this declare, — 
" If Heaven a draught of heav'nly pleasure spare, 

One cordial in this melancholy vale, 
'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair. 

In other's arms breathe out the tender tale. 
Beneath the milk white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale." 

* Spiers — asks. ^ Uncos — news. ^ Q^rs — makes. " Eydent — diligent. 
5 Hafflins — partly. ^ Ben — into the parlor. '' Strappan — tall and hand- 

some. * Cracks — converses. ^ Kye — kine, cows. '° Blate — bashful. 

'' Laithfu' — reluctant. '^ The lave — the rest, the others. 



636 BURNS. [GEORGE III. 

Is there, in human form, that bears a heart, — 

A wretch ! a villam ! lost to love and truth ! 
That can, with studied, sly, insnaring art, 

Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth ? 
Curse on his perjured arts ! dissembhng smooth ! 

Are honor, virtue, conscience, all exiled? 
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,* 

Points to the jDarents fondling o'er their child ? 
Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild ! 

But now the supper crowns their simple board ! 

The halesome parritch,^ chief o' Scotia's food: 
The soupe3 their only hawkie* does afford, 

That 'yont5 the hallan^ snugly chows her cood : 
The dame brings forth, in complimental mood, 

To grace the lad, her ^veel-hain■d'' kebbuck,s fell,^ 
An' aft he's press'd, an' aft he ca's it good ; 

The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell. 
How 'twas a towm.ondio auld," sin'^ lint was i' the bell.'^ 

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, 

They round the ingle fomi a circle wide ; 
The sire^'i turns o'er wi' patriarchal grace. 

The big Ha'-Bible^s ance his father's pride : 
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, 

* Ruth — mercy, kind feeling. ^ Parritch — oatmeal-pudding. ^ Soupe — 
sauce, milk. * Hawkie — a pet-name for a cow. ^ 'Yont — beyond. 

*^ Hallan — a turf-seat outside a cottage. ' "Weel-hain'd — carefully preserved, 
* Kebbuck — a cheese. ^ Fell — biting to the taste. ^° Towmond — twelve 
months. " Auld — old. "Sin — since. " Lint was in the bell — flax 

was in blossom. 

'* This picture, as all the world knows, he drew from his father. He was him- 
self, in imagination, again one of the " wee things" that ran to meet him ; 
and " the priest-like father" had long worn that aspect before the poet's eyes, 
though he died before he was threescore. '' I have always considered Wil- 
liam Burns," (the father.) says Murdoch, "as by far the best of the human 
race that I ever had the pleasure of being acquainted with, and many a worthy 
character I have known. He was a tender and affectionate father, and took 
pleasure in leading his children in the paths of virtue. I must not pretend to 
give you a description of all the manly qualities, the rational and Christian 
virtues of the venerable Burns. I shall only add that he practised every 
known duty, and avoided every thing that was criminal." The following is 
the " Epitaph" which the son wrote for him. 

O ye, whose cheek the tear of pity stains, 

Draw near, with pious rev'rence, and attend ! 
Here lie the loving husband's dear remains, 

The tender father, and the generous friend : 
The pitying heart that felt for human woe ; 

The dauntless heart that fear'd no human pride; 
The friend of man, to vice alone a foe, 

" For ev'n his failings lean'd to virtue's side." 
'^ Ha'-Bible— the great Bible kept in the hall. 



1760-1820.] BURNSo 637 

His lyart* hafFets2 wearin' thin an' bare; 
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide. 
He wales3 a portion with judicious care ; 
And " Let us worship God," he says, wi' solemn air. 

They chant their artless notes in simple guise 5 

They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim ; 
Perhaps Dundee's^ wild warbling measures rise. 

Or plaintive Martyrs,^ worthy of the name ; 
Or noble Elgiii'^ beats the heav'nward flame, • 

The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays : 
Compared with these, Italian trills are tame ; 

The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise ; 
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. 

The priest-like father reads the sacred page, 

How Abram was the friend of God on high ; 
Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage 

With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; 
Or, how the Royal Bard^ did groaning lie 

Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire ; 
Or, Job's pathetic plain and wailing cry ; 

Or, rapt Isaiah's wild seraphic fire ; 
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. 

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme. 

How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed ; 
How He, who bore in heaven the second name, 

Had not on earth whereon to lay his head: 
How His first followers and servants sped ; 

The precepts sage they wrote to many a land : 
How he,6 who lone in Patmos^ banished, 

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand. 
And heard great Babylon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command. 

Then kneeling down to heaven's eternal King, 

The saint, the father, and the husband prays: 
Hope " springs exulting on triumphant wing," 

That thus they all shall meet in future days ; 
There ever bask in uncreated rays. 

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, 
Together hymning their Creator's praise, 

In such society, yet still more dear. 
While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. 

Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride. 

In all the pomp of method and of art, 
When men display to congregations wide. 

Devotion's every grace, except the heart! 

^ Lyart — gray. 2 jjaffets — the temples, the sides of the head. 

^ Wales — chooses. '' Dundee, Martyrs, Elgin — the names of Scottish 

psalm-tunes. ^ Royal bard — David. ^ He — Saint John. ■• Patmos — 

an island in the Archipelago, where Saint John is supposed to have written 
his Revelation. 



638 BURNS. [gEORGE III. 

The Pow'r incensed, the pageant will desert, 
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ;* 
But haply, in some cottage far apart, 

May hear, well-pleased, the language of the soul ; 
And in his book of life the inmates poor enrol. 

Then homeward all take ojf their sev'ral way ; 

The youngling cottagers retire to rest ; 
The parent-pair their secret homage pay. 

And proffer up to Heaven the warm request, 
That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest, 

And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride, 
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best. 

For them and for their little ones provide ; 
But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside. 

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, 

That makes her loved at home, revered abroad ; 
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 

" An honest man's the noblest work of God;" 
And certes,2 in fair virtue's heavenly road, 

The cottage leaves the palace far behind : 
What is a lordling's pomp 1 a cumbrous load. 

Disguising oft the wretch of human-kind, 
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined ! 

Scotia! my dear, my native soil! 

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent! 
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil. 

Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! 
And, O! may Heaven their simple lives prevent 

From luxury's contagion, weak and vile! 
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, 

A virtuous populace may rise the while. 
And stand, a wall of fire, around their much-loved isle. 

Thou ! who pour'd the patriotic tide 

That stream'd through Wallace's^ undaunted heart ; 
Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride. 

Or nobly die, the second glorious part, 
(The patriot's God peculiarly thou art. 

His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!) 
never, never, Scotia's realm desert: 

But still the patriot and the patriot bard 
In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard ! 



MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN. 

When chill November's surly blast 

Made fields and forests bare, 
One evening, as I wander'd forth 

Along the banks of ^yr, 

Sacerdotal stole — priestly vestment. 2 Certes — certainly. 

Wallace — Sir William Wallace, the celebrated Scottish patriot. 



1760-1820.] BURNS. 639 

I spy'd a man, whose aged step 

Seem'd weary, worn with care; 
His face was furrow'd o'er with years. 

And hoary was his hair, 

Yonng stranger, whither wand'rest thou? 

(Began the rev'rend sage;) 
Does thirst of weaUh thy step constrain, 

Or youthful pleasure's rage ? 
Or haply, prest with cares and woes, 

Too soon thou hast began. 
To wander forth, with me, to mourn 

The miseries of man ! 

The sun that overhangs yon moors, 

Outspreading far and wide. 
Where hundreds labor to support 

A haughty lordling's pride ; 
I've seen yon weary winter-sun 

Twice forty times return ; 
And every time has added proofs, 

That man was made to mourn. 

man! while in thy early years, 

Hov/ prodigal of time! 
Misspending all thy precious hours, 

Thy glorious youthful prime ! 
Alternate follies take the sway ; 

Licentious passions burn ; 
Which tenfold force give Nature's law, 

That man was made to mourn. 

Look not alone on youthful prime, 

Or manhood's active might; 
Man then is useful to his kind, 

Supported in his right. 
But see him on the edge of life. 

With cares and sorrows worn. 
Then age and want, oh ! ill-matched pair ! 

Show man was made to mourn. 

A few seem favorites of fate, 

In pleasure's lap carest; 
Yet, think not all the rich and great 

Are likewise truly blest. 
But, oh! what crowds, in every land, 

Are wretched and forlorn ; 
Thro' weary life this lesson learn, 

That man was made to mourn. 

Many and sharp the num'rous ills 

Inwoven with our frame ! 
More pointed still we make ourselves 

Regret, remorse, and shame 1 



640 BURKE. [gEORGE III. 

And man, whose heav'n-erected face 

The smiles of love adorn, 
Man's inhumanity to man 

Makes countless thousands mourn ! 

See yonder poor, o'erlabored wight, 

So abject, mean, and vile, 
Who begs a brother of the earth, 

To give him leave to toil : 
And see his lordly fellow-icorm 

The poor petition spuxn, 
Unmindful, tho" a weeping wife 

And helpless offspring mourn. 

If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave — 

By Nature's law design'd. 
Why was an independent wish 

E'er planted in my inind ? 
If not, why am I subject to 

His cruelty or scorn ? 
Or why has man the -will and pow'r 

To make his fellow mourn ? 

Yet, let not this too much, my son, 

Disturb thy youthful breast : 
This partial view of liuman-kind 

Is surely not the last ! 
The poor, oppressed, honest man, 

Had never, sure, been born, 
Had there not been some recompense 

To comfort those that mourn ! 

death! the poor man's dearest friend. 

The kindest and the best ! 
Welcome the horn: my aged limbs 

Are laid with thee at rest! 
The gTeat, the wealthy, fear thy blow, 

From pomp and pleasure torn ; 
But, oh ! a blest relief to those 

That, weary-laden, mourn! 



EDMUND BURKE, 1730—1797. 

This most distinguished writer and statesman M^as. born at Dublin on 
the 1st of January, 1730. On his mother's side he was connected with the 
poet Spenser, from whom, it is said, he received his Christian name. He 
was educated at BaUitore in the county of Kildare, at a classical academy 
under the management of Abraham Shackleton, a Quaker of superior talents 
and learning. Here, according to his own testimony, Burke acquired the 
most valuable of his mental habits ; he ever felt the deepest gratitude for his 
early instructor, and with his only son, Richard, the successor in the school, 



1760-1820.] BURKE. 641 

he preserved an intimate friendship to the end of his life. In 1744 he en- 
tered Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1750 he was entered as a law-student 
at the iviiddle Temple, London: but his thoughts were soon entirely turned 
to literature and politics, to which, henceforth, all his time, and talents, and 
energies were devoted. His first publication was anonymous, entitled, "A 

Vindication of Natural Society, in a Letter to Lord , by a Noble 

Lord." It was such an adm.irable im.itation of the style of Lord Bolingbroke, 
that many were deceived by it, and deemed it a posthumous publication of 
that nobleman, who had been dead but five years. It was ironical through- 
out, endeavoring to prove that the same arguments with which that noble- 
man had attacked revealed religion, might be applied against all civil and 
political institutions whatever. 

In the next year, Burke published his "Essay on the Sublime and Beau- 
tiful," which, by the elegance of its language, and the spirit of philosophical 
investigation displayed in it, placed him at once in the very first class of 
writers on taste and criticism. His object is to show that terror is the prin- 
cipal source of the sublime, and that beauty is the quality in objects which 
excites love or affection. The fame acquired by this work introduced the 
author to the best literary acquaintances, among whom were Sir Joshua 
Reynolds and Dr. Johnson. In 1758 he suggested to Dodsley the plan of 
the Annual Register, and engaged, himself, to furnish the chief historical 
matter, which he continued to do for very many years, and which has made 
that work the most valuable repository of historical knowledge of the times. 

In 1765, on the accession to power of the Marquis of Rockingham, he 
was appointed by that minister his private secretary, and was brought into 
Parliament for the borough of Wendover. It would be impossible, in the 
limited space assigned to these biographical sketches, to give an outline of 
his subsequent parliamentary and political career, or to enumerate all his 
various publications. His life is a history of those eventful times, — for in 
them he acted a part more conspicuous than any other man. His able and 
eloquent opposition to the infatuated measures of the ministry which led to 
and prolonged the contest between England and our own country — his advo- 
cacy of the freedom of the press — of an improved libel law — of Catholic 
emancipation — of economical reform — of the abolition of the slave trade'— 
his giant efforts in the impeachment of Warren Hastings — and his most elo- 
quent and uncompromising hostility to the French revolution, in his speeches 
in Parliament, and in his well known "Reflections on the Revolution in 

* Those who are not well read in the history of those times can hardly have 
an idea of the deep, bitter, malignant hostility, which the early English abo- 
litionists, Sharp, Clarkson, Wilberforce and others, had to encounter. Even 
Lord Chancellor Thurlow said, in his place in the House of Lords, on the 
18th of June, 1788, that " it was unjust that this sudden fit of philanthropy, 
which was but a few days old, should be allowed to disturb the public mind, 
and to become the occasion of bringing men to the metropolis, who were 
engaged in the trade, with tears in their eyes and horror in their countenances, 
to deprecate the ruin of their property, which they had embarked on the faith 
of Parliament:" and the Earl of Westmoreland considered that " as much 
attention was due to our property and manufactures as to a false humanity.^' 

41 



642 BURKE. [gEORGE III. 

France," — these are some of the most prominent objects in which he exerted 
his great talents. 

In 1794, his son, who had just been elected to Parliament, took ill and 
died; — a blow so severe to the father that he never recovered from it; and 
it doubtless hastened his own end, which took place on the 9th of July, 1797 

As an eloquent and philosophic political character, Burke stands alone 
His intellect was at once exact, minute, and comprehensive, and his imagi 
nation rich and vigorous. As to his style, he is remarkable for the copious 
ness and freedom of his diction, the splendor and great variety of his imagery 
his astonishing command of general truths, and the ease with which he 
seems to wield those fine weapons of language, which most writers are able 
to manage only by the most anxious care. The following remarks of an 
able critic' are as beautiful as they are just : ^ 

" There can be no hesitation in according to Mr. Burke a station among 
the most extraordinary men that have ever appeared; and we think there 
is now but little diversity of opinion as to the kind of place which it is fit to 
assign him. He was a writer of the first class, and excelled in almost every 
kind of prose composition. Possessed of most extensive knowledge, and 
of the most various description ; acquainted alike with what different classes 
of men knew, each in his own province, and with much that hardly any 
one ever thought of learning; he could either bring his masses of informa- 
tion to bear directly upon the subjects to which they severally belonged — or 
he could avail himself of them generally to strengthen his faculties and 
enlarge his views — or he could turn any portion of them to account for the 
purpose of illustrating his theme, or enriching his diction. Hence, when he 
is handling any one matter, we perceive that we are conversing with a rea- 
soner or a teacher, to whom almost every other branch of knowledge is 
familiar : his views range over all the cognate subjects ; his reasonings are 
derived from principles applicable to other theories as well as the one in 
hand : arguments pour in from all sides, as well as those which start up 
under our feet, the natural growth of the path he is leading us over ; while 
to throw light round our steps, and either explore its darker places, or serve 
for our recreation, illustrations are fetched from a thousand quarters ; and an 
imagination marvellously quick to descry unthought-of resemblances, points 
to our use the stores, which a lore yet more marvellous has gathered from 
all ages, and nations, and arts, and tongues. We are, in respect of the 
argument, reminded of Bacon's multifarious knowledge, and the exuberance 
of his learned fancy; while the many-lettered diction recalls to mind the first 
of English poets, and his immortal verse, rich with the spoils of all sciences 
and all times. "2 

» Read the article in vol. xlvi. of the Edinburgh Review : also, his Life by 
James Prior, by far the most accurate and complete of any hitherto published. 
2 The following comparison between Burke and Johnson, is taken from 
Cumberland's " Retrospection." 

Nature gave to each 
Pow'rs that in some respects may be compared, 
For both were Orators — and could we now 
Canvass the social circles where they mix'd, 



1760-1820.] BURKE. 643 



TERROR A SOURCE OF THE SUBLIME. 

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of 
acting and reasoning as fear ; for fear being an apprehension of 
pain or death, it operates in a manner that resembles actual 
pain. Whatever therefore is terrible with regard to sight, is 
sublime too, whether this cause of terror be endued with great- 
ness of dimensions or not; for it is impossible to look on any- 
thing as trifling or contemptible, that may be dangerous. There 
are many animals, who, though far from being large, are yet 
capable of raising ideas of the sublime, because they are con- 
sidered as objects of terror ; as serpents and poisonous animals 
of almost all kinds. Even to things of great dimensions, if we 
annex any adventitious idea of terror, they become without 
comparison greater. An even plain of a vast extent of land, is 
certainly no mean idea : the prospect of such a plain may be 
as extensive as a prospect of the ocean ; but can it ever fill the 
mind with anything so great as the ocean itself? This is owing 
to several causes, but it is owing to none more than to this, that 
the ocean is an object of no small terror. 

The palm for eloquence by general vote 
Would rest with him whose thunder never shook 
The senate or the bar. When Burke harangu'd 
The nation's representatives, methought 
The fine machinery that his fancy wrought, 
Rich but fantastic, sometimes would obscure 
That symmetry which ever should uphold 
The dignity and order of debate. 
'Gainst orator like this had Johnson rose, 
So clear was his perception of the truth, 
So grave his judgment, and so high the swell 
Of his full period, I must think his speech 
Had charmed as many and enlighten'd more. 

Johnson, if right I judge, in classic lore 
Was more diffuse than deep: he did not dig 
So many fathoms down as Bentley dug 
In Grecian soil, but far enough to find 
Truth ever at the bottom of his shaft. 
Burke, borne by genius on a lighter wing, 
Skimm'd o'er the flow'ry plains of Greece and Rome, 
And, like the bee returning to its hive, 
Brought nothing home but sweets : Johnson would dash 
Thro' sophist or grammarian ankle-deep, 
And rummage in their mud to trace a date, 
Or hunt a dogma down, that gave offence 
To his philosophy. — 



644 BURKE. [gEORGE III. 



SYMPATHY A SOURCE OF THE SUBLIME. 

It is by the passion of sympathy that we enter into the con- 
cerns of others ; that we are moved as they are moved, and are 
never suffered to be indifferent spectators of ahnost anything 
which men can do or suffer. For sympathy must be considered 
as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the place of 
another man, and affected in a good measure as he is affected; 
so that this passion may either partake of the nature of those 
which regard self-preservation, and turning upon pain may be 
a source of the sublime ; or it may turn upon ideas of pleasure, 
and then, whatever has been said of the social affections, 
whether they regard society in general, or only some particular 
modes of it, may be applicable here. 

It is by this principle chiefly that poetry, painting, and other 
affecting arts, transfuse their passions from one breast to an- 
other, and are often capable of grafting a delight on wretched- 
ness, misery, and death itself. It is a common observation, 
that objects, which in the reality would shock, are, in tragical 
and such like representations, the source of a very high species 
of pleasure. This, taken as a fact, has been the cause of much 
reasoning. This satisfaction has been commonly attributed. 



Both had a taste 
For contradiction, but in mode unlike : 
Johnson at once would doggedly pronounce 
Opinions false, and after prove them such. 
Burke not less critical, but more polite, 
With ceaseless volubility of tongue 
Play'd round and round his subject, till at length. 
Content to find you willing to admire, 
He ceased to urge, or win you to assent. 

Splendor of style, fertility of thought. 
And the bold use of metaphor in both, 
Strike us with rival beauty: Burke display'd 
A copious period, that, with curious skill 
And ornamental epithet drawn out, 
Was, like the singer's cadence, sometimes apt, 
Altho' melodious, to fatigue the ear: 
Johnson, with terms unnaturaliz'd and rude, 
And Latinisms forc'd into his line, 
Like raw, undrill'd recruits, would load his text 
High sounding and uncouth : yet if you cull 
His happier pages, you will find a style 
Quintilian might have prais'd. Still I perceive 
Nearer approach to purity in Burke, 
Tho' not the full accession to that grace, 
That chaste simplicity, which is the last 
And best attainment, author can possess. 



1760-1820.] BURKE. 645 

first, to the comfort we receive in considering that so melan- 
choly a story is no more than a fiction ; and next, to the con- 
templation of our own freedom from the evils we see repre- 
sented. I am afraid it is a practice much too common, in 
inquiries of this nature, to attribute the cause of feelings which 
merely arise from the mechanical structure of our bodies, or 
from the natural frame and constitution of our minds, to certain 
conclusions of the reasoning faculty on the objects presented 
to us ; for I have some reason to apprehend, that the influence 
of reason in producing our passions is nothing near so exten- 
sive as is commonly believed. 

UNCERTAINTY A SOURCE OF THE SUBLIME. 

A low tremulous intermitting sound is productive of the sub- 
lime. It is worth while to examine this a little. The fact 
itself must be determined by every man's own experience and 
reflection. I have always observed that night increases our 
terror, more perhaps than anything else; it is our nature, when 
we do not know what may happen to us, to fear the worst that 
can happen ; and hence it is that uncertainty is so terrible, that 
we often seek to be rid of it, at the hazard of a certain mischief. 
Now some low, confused, uncertain sounds leave us in the 
same fearful anxiety concerning their causes, that no light, or 
an uncertain light, does concerning the objects that surround us. 

" A faint shadow of uncertain light, 

Like as a laixip, whose life doth fade away ; 

Or as the moon, clothed with cloudy night, 

Doth show to him who walks in fear and great affright." 

But light now appearing and now leaving us, and so ofl" and 
on, is even more terrible than total darkness; and sorts of un- 
certain sounds are, when the necessary dispositions concur, 
more alarming than a total silence. 

DIFFICULTY ADVANTAGEOUS. 

Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the Supreme 
ordinance of a parental guardian and legislator, who knows us 
better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too. He 
that wrestles with us, strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our 
skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict 
with difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with our 
object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It 
will not suff'er us lO be superficial. 



646 BURKE. [gEORGE III. 



REVOLUTIONS OF NATIONAL GRANDEUR. 

I doubt whether the history of mankind is yet complete 
enough, if ever it can be so, to furnish grounds for a sure theory 
on the internal causes which necessarily affect the fortune of a 
state. I am far from denying the operation of such causes; 
but they are infinitely uncertain, and much more obscure, and 
much more difficult to trace, than the foreign causes that tend 
to raise, to depress, and sometimes to overwhelm a community. 
It is often impossible in these political inquiries, to find any 
proportion between the apparent force of any moral causes we 
may assign, and their known operation. We are therefore 
obliged to deliver up that operation to mere chance, or, more 
piously, (perhaps more rationally,) to the occasional interposi- 
tion and irresistible hand of the Great Disposer. We have 
seen states of considerable duration, which for ages have re- 
mained nearly as they have begun, and would hardly be said to 
ebb or flow. Some appear to have spent their vigor at their 
commencement. Some have blazed out in their glory a little 
before their extinction. The meridian of others has been the 
most splendid. Others, and they are the greatest number, have 
fluctuated, and experienced at different periods of their exist- 
ence a great variety of fortune. At the very moment when 
some of them seemed plunged in unfathomable abysses of dis- 
grace and disaster, they have suddenly emerged. They have 
begun a new course, and opened a new reckoning ; and even 
in the depths of their calamity, and on the very ruins of their 
country, have laid the foundations of a towering and durable 
greatness. All this has happened without any apparent pre- 
vious change in the general circumstances which had brought 
on their distress : the death of a man at a critical juncture, his 
disgust, his retreat, his disgrace, have brought innumerable 
calamities on a whole nation. A common soldier, a child, a 
girl at the door of an inn, have changed the face of fortune, 
and almost of nature. 

CHARACTER OF JUNIUS. 

Where, Mr. Speaker, shall we look for the origin of this 
relaxation of the laws, and of all government ? How comes 
this Junius to have broken through the cobwebs of the law, 
and to range uncontrolled, unpunished, through the land ? The 
myrmidons of the court have been long, and are still, pursuing 



1760-1820.] BURKE. 647 

him in vain. They will not spend their tjme upon me, or 
you : no ; they disdain such vermin, when the mighty boar of 
the forest, that has broken through all their toils, is before them. 
But, what will all their efforts avail? No sooner has he 
wounded one, than he lays down another dead at his feet. 
For my part, when I saw his attack upon the king, I own my 
blood ran cold. I thought he had ventured too far, and that 
there was an end of his triumphs ; not that he had not asserted 
many truths. Yes, sir, there are in that composition many 
bold truths by which a wise prince might profit. But while I 
expected from this daring flight his final ruin and fall, behold 
him rising still higher, and coming down souse upon both 
houses of Parliament. Yes, he did make you his quarry, and 
you still bleed from the wounds of his talons. You crouched, 
and still crouch beneath his rage. Nor has he dreaded the 
terror of your brow, sir; he has attacked even you — he has — 
and I believe you have no reason to triumph in the encounter. 
In short, after carrying away our royal eagle in his pounces, 
and dashing him against a rock, he has laid you prostrate. 
Kings, Lords, and Commons, are but the sport of his fury. 
Were he a member of this house, what might not be expected 
from his knowledge, his firmness, and integrity ! He would 
be easily known by his contempt of all danger, by his penetra- 
tion, by his vigor. Nothing would escape his vigilance and 
activity ; bad ministers could conceal nothing from his sagacity; 
nor could promises or threats induce him to conceal anything 
from the public. 

CLOSE OF HIS SPEECH TO THE ELECTORS OF BRISTOL. 

Gentlemen, I have had my day. I can never sufhciently 
express my gratitude to you, for having set me in a place, 
wherein I could lend the slightest help to great and laudable 
designs. If I have had my share, in any measure giving quiet 
to private property, and private conscience ; if by my vote I 
have aided in securing to families the best possession, peace ; 
if I have joined in reconciling kings to their subjects, and sub- 
jects to their prince ; if I have assisted to loosen the foreign 
holdings of the citizen, and taught him to look for his protection 
to the laws of his country, and for his comfort to the good-will 
of his countrymen ; — if I have thus taken my part with the best 
of men in the best of their actions, I can shut the book ; — I 
might wish to read a page or two more — but this is enough for 
mv measure. — I have not lived in vain. 



648 BURKE. [gEORGE III. 

And now, gentlemen, on this serious day, when I come, as 
it were, to make up my account with you, let me take to my- 
self some degree of honest pride on the nature of the charges 
that are against me. I do not here stand before you accused of 
venality, or of neglect of duty. It is not said, that, in the long 
period of my service, I have, in a single instance, sacrificed the 
slightest of your interests to my ambition, or to my fortune. 
It is not alleged, that to gratify any anger, or revenge of my 
own, or of my party, I have had a share in wronging or op- 
pressing any description of men, or any one man in any de- 
scription. No ! the charges against me are all of one kind, 
that I have pushed the principles of general justice and benevo- 
lence too far; further than a cautious policy would warrant ; 
and further than the opinions of many would go along with me. 
In every accident which may happen through life, in pain, in 
sorrow, in depression, and distress — I will call to mind this 
accusation; and be comforted. 



THE QUEEN OF FRANCE. 

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I first saw the 
Queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles ; and 
surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to 
touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the 
horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere, she just 
began to move in, — glittering like the morning-star, full of life, 
and splendor, and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what a 
heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that eleva- 
tion and that fall ! Little did I dream when she added titles of 
veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that 
she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against 
disgrace concealed in that bosom ; little did I dream that I 
should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a 
nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cava- 
liers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from 
their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with 
insult. — But the age of chivalry is gone.' — That of sophisters, 

^ And well is it that " the age of chivalry is gone," for it was an age of 
brute force, sanctioned by an institution as silly as it was revengeful, bloody, 
and barbarous. How justly the late accomplished Christian scholar, Dr. 
Arnold, speaks of it: "I confess that if I were called upon to name what 
spirit of evil predominantly deserved the name of Antichrist, I should name 
the spirit of chivalry — the more detestable for the very guise of 'archangel 
ruined,' which has made it so seductive to the most generous spirits, but to 



1760-1820.] BURKE. 649 

economists, and calculators has succeeded ; and the glory of 
Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more, shall we 
behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud sub- 
mission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the 
heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an 
exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap de- 
fence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enter- 
prise is gone ! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that 
chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which in- 
spired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled 
whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its 
evil, by losing all its grossness. 



BURKE S LAMENTATION OVER HIS SON. 

From his ^^ Letter to a Noble Lord.''^ 

Had it pleased God to continue to me the hopes of succes- 
sion, I should have been, according to my mediocrity, and the 
mediocrity of the age I live in, a sort of founder of a family ; 
I should have left a son, who, in all the points in which per- 
sonal merit can be viewed, in science, in erudition, in genius, 
in taste, in honor, in generosity, in humanity, in every liberal 
sentiment, and every liberal accomplishment, would not have 
shown himself inferior to the Duke of Bedford, or to any of 
those to whom he traces in his line. His grace very soon 
would have wanted all plausibility in his attack upon that pro- 
vision which belonged more to mine than to me. He would 
soon have supplied every deficiency, and symmetrized every 
disproportion. It would not have been for that successor to 
resort to any stagnant wasting reservoir of merit in me, or in 
any ancestry. He had in himself a salient, living spring, of 
generous and manly action. Every day he lived he would 
have repurchased the bounty of the crown, and ten times more, 
if ten times more he had received. He was made a public 
creature ; and had no enjoyment whatever, but in the perform- 
ance of some duty. At this exigent moment, the loss of a 
finished man is not easily supplied. 

But a Disposer whose power we are little able to resist, and 
whose wisdom it behoves us not at all to dispute, has ordained 
it in another manner, and (whatever my querulous weakness 

me so hateful, because it is in direct opposition to the impartial justice of the 
Gospel and its comprehensive feeling of equal brotherhood, and because it so 
fostered a sense of honor rather than a sense of duty." 



650 THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. [gEORGE III. 

might suggest) a far better. The storm has gone over me; 
and I lie like one of those old oaks which the late hurricane 
hath scattered about me. I am stripped of all my honors : I 
am torn up by the roots, and lie prostrate on the earth ! There, 
and prostrate there, I most unfeignedly recognize the divine 
justice, and in some degree submit to it. But whilst I humble 
myself before God, I do not know that it is forbidden to repel 
the attacks of unjust and inconsiderate men. The patience of 
Job is proverbial. After some of the convulsive struggles of 
our irritable nature, he submitted himself, and repented in dust 
and ashes. But even so, I do not find him blamed for repre- 
hending, and with a considerable degree of verbal asperity, 
those ill-natured neighbors of his, who visited his dunghill to 
read moral, political, and economical lectures on his misery. 
I am alone. I have none to meet my enemies in the gate. 
Indeed, my lord, I greatly deceive myself, if, in this hard season, 
I would give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called fame 
and honor in the world. This is the appetite but of a few. It 
is a luxury ; it is a privilege ; it is an indulgence for those who 
are at their ease. But we are all of us made to shun disgrace, 
as we are made to shrink from pain, and poverty, and disease. 
It is an instinct; and under the direction of reason, instinct is 
always in the right. I live in an inverted order. They who 
ought to have succeeded me are gone before me. They who 
should have been to me as posterity, are in the place of ances- 
tors. I owe to the dearest relation (which ever must subsist 
in memory) that act of piety, which he would have performed 
to me ; I owe it to him to show that he was not descended, as 
the Duke of Bedford would have it, from an unworthy parent. 



THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 

In this attempt to present to the public a series of the choicest extracts 
from the whole range of English prose literature, it would be almost unpar- 
donable to pass over in silence the celebrated " Letters of Junius." That 
they may be the better understood and more keenly relished, especially by 
the younger portion of our readers, a few words upon the state of the times 
in which they appeared, as explanatory of their object, may, if not absolutely 
necessary, at least be somewhat interesting. 

George the Third ascended the throne of Great Britain at a very eventful 
period of its history. A war of unexampled extent, and embracing a vast 
variety of interests was then raging — the " Seven Years' War," (1756 — 63,) 



1760-1820.] THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 651 

between Prussia and Austria, in which Great Britain, as well as many of 
the other European powers, unhappily became entangled. Fortunately for 
England a ministry of great talents and energy directed the affairs of the 
nation, of which the elder Pitt was the most conspicuous member and the 
main support. But soon after the king's accession it seemed to many that his 
principles were far more despotic — more inclined to extend the rights of the 
crown, and to abridge the rights of the people, than those which had actuated 
any of his predecessors of the same family. The great Whig' families of the 
kingdom, by the aid of whose ancestors the Revoluiion had chiefly been 
brought about, thought that their services were slighted and set at naught by 
a prince who was but a little way removed from that very sovereign whom 
their fathers had placed upon the throne, to the exclusion of a family of 
arbitrary principles. 

These feehngs and fears were increased by the resignation of William 
Pitt, in 1761, and by the formation of a new ministry under the Earl of 
Bute, the king's especial favorite. He had the honor, however, of bringing 
to a close that terrible war which brought so much of " glory" to Mr. Pitt 
and the nation, along with an overwhelming national debt. To meet the 
great expenses of the nation, additional taxes were proposed, both upon the 
people at home, and upon the then American colonies. This produced great 
discontent on both sides of the Atlantic. The Earl of Bute resigned in 
1763, and a new ministry was appointed, at the head of which was Lord 
Grenville, 1763 — 65. At this time very free, and in many cases virulent 
discussions were carried on in the newspapers of the day, relative to the 
course of public events. Of these, a paper called the " North Briton," was 
the most violent. It was edited by John Wilkes, a member of Parliament, 
who, in consequence of some very severe remarks in his paper upon the 
speech of the king to the Parliament, was expelled that body. At once he 
became the idol of the people — offered himself as a candidate to the electors 
of Westminster — and was returned to Parliament by a large majority. Par- 
liament, however, declared him incapable of resuming his seat; and hence 
arose throughout the kingdom thai remarkable discussion which shook the 
pillars of the state. 

While the cause of Wilkes was agitating the nation, the question of tax- 
ing America, and the consequences that might result therefrom, were be- 
coming every day more alarming. To add to the general discontent, there 
was a constant change in the administration. Lord Bute was succeeded by 
the Duke of Bedford's ministry in 1763 ; Lord Rockingham was appointed 
prime minister in 1765 ; Lord Chatham formed a new arrangement in 1766; 
the Duke of Grafton another in 1767 ; and Lord North completed the series 
in 1770. Thus the people saw that there was little harmony of views in 
those who were at the helm of state, and who should, in their counsels, espe- 
cially at such a time, be united. 

On the 22d of February, 1770, the Marquis of Rockingham, in his place 
in the House of Lords, moved " that a day be appointed to take into eon- 

* See note explanatory of the English term " Whig," on p. 392. 



652 THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. [gEORGE III. 

sideration the state of the nation. In supporting this motion he urged, 
that the present unhappy condition of affairs, and the universal discontent of 
the people, arose from no temporary cause, but had grown by degrees from 
the first moment of his majesty's accession to the tlirone ; that the persons 
in whom his majesty then confided had introduced a system subversive of 
the old principles of English government ; their maxim being, that the royal 
prerogative alone was suflficient to support government, to whatever hand the 
administration might be committed. The operation of this principle was 
observable in every act over which the influence of these persons had been 
exerted; and by a tyrannical exercise of power, they had removed from their 
places, not the great and dignified only, but numberless innocent families, 
who had subsisted on small salaries, and were now turned out to misery and 
ruin. By this injustice — by the taxes which had been imposed at home — 
by the indecent management of the civil list — by the mode of taxing and 
treating America — by the recent invasion of the freedom of election — in 
short, by every procedure at home and abroad, the constitution had been 
wounded, and the worst effects had resulted to the nation. He therefore 
recommended it strongly to their lordships, to fix an early day for taking 
into consideration the state of the country, in all its relations, foreign, pro- 
vincial, and domestic; for it had been injured in them all. That considera- 
tion, he hoped, would lead them to advise the crown to correct past errors, 
and to establish a system of government more suited to the people, and more 
consistent with the constitution." 

It was at this period, when the public mind was thus intensely agitated, that 
the celebrated " Letters of Junius" appeared. They were published in the 
" Public Advertiser" of London, a paper printed by Mr. Woodfall;^ one of 
the highest respectability, and which had the most extensive circulation in 
the kingdom. The first of these letters was dated January 21, 1769, and 
the last, January 21, 1772. No sooner did they appear, than they attracted 
universal attention. The author,^ whoever he was, was evidently no com- 
mon man. To a minute, exact, as well as comprehensive knowledge of public 
affairs, he added a moral courage and dignity, a fearlessness in exposing the 
corruptions and the blunders of the government, a just and manly sense of the 
rights and interests of the people, and a scholarship that showed itself in a 
style of such unrivalled clearness, grace, and elegance, united to a conden- 
sation, energy, precision, and strength, that at once commanded the atten- 
tion and admiration of the nation. Even his adversaries, at the very moment 
when his satire and invective were producing their most powerful effect, 
never failed to compliment him on the classical correctness, the attic wit, the 
figurative beauty, and the manly power of his language. 

The first quality of style that will strike the reader of Junius, is the studied 
energy and great compression of his language. There is not only no super- 

» Woodfall was afterwards tried for these alleged " libellous publications," 
before Lord Mansfield ; and though his lordship did all he could that he might 
be convicted, the jury acquitted him, and thus established, on an immovable 
foundation, the freedom of the press. 

2 See Burke's admirable description of him, on page 646. 



1760-1820.] THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 653 

fluous sentence, but there is no superfluous word in any of his sentences. 
He seems to have aimed at this quality with the greatest care, as best suited 
to the style and character of his mode of thinking, and best accommodated 
to the high attitude which he assumed, as the satirist and judge, not of ordi- 
nary men or common authors, but of the most elevated and distinguished, 
personages and institutions of his country ; of a person who seemed to feel 
himself called on to treat majesty itself with perfect freedom ; and before 
whom the supreme wisdom and might of the great councils of the state stood 
rebuked and in fear. 

But of all the varied powers that Junius has displayed, none is so pecu- 
liarly and entirely his own, as his power of sarcasm. Other authors deal 
occasionally in it, but with Junius it is more general ; and whenever he rises 
to his highest sphere, he assumes the air of a being who delights to taunt 
and to mock his adversary. He refuses to treat him as a person who should 
be seriously dealt with, and pours out his contempt or indignation under an 
imposing affectation of deference and respect. His talent for sarcasm, too, is 
of the finest kind: it is so carefully but so poignantly exerted, that it is 
necessary to watch his words to perceive all the satire which they contain. 
Thus we may have an impression that the author is only speaking in his 
natural style when he is employing a mode of annoyance which it requires 
the utmost address and skill to manage. But when his irony is perceived, 
it strikes like a poniard, and the wound which it makes is such as cannot be 
closed. Indeed, there is, perhaps, no author who possesses this quality in 
the same perfection, or who has exerted it with the same effect. 

But the style of Junius, admirable as it is, cannot be proposed as a model 
for general imitation. "It is too epigrammatic — too much characterized 
by the tone of invective — and too strongly compressed, to be used by any 
mind but one similar to that of its author, and, it may be added, but for pur- 
poses resembling those for which he employed it. Few authors, accordingly, 
have attempted to imitate the style of Junius, and the few that have attempted 
it have not succeeded. His style was exquisitely fitted for the purpose to 
which he destined it, and should be studied, carefully and repeatedly, by 
those who would see the English language in one of its happiest forms. But 
the nerve of Junius must belong to the man who can hope to use, success- 
fully, the instrument which he used ; for that instrument was fitted to his 
grasp, and among ordinary men there are none who can pretend to wield 
it.'" 

FROM THE DEDICATION TO THE ENGLISH NATION. 

I dedicate to you a collection of Letters, written by one of 
yourselves for the common benefit of us all. They would 
never have grown to this size, without your continued encou- 

* Wocdfall's is generally considered the best edition of Junius; but an ad- 
mirable one is that published by Oliver Boyd, Edinburgh, 1822, with notes 
and preliminary dissertations, and to which I am indebted for a portion of the 
above remarks. 



654 THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. [gEORGE III. 

ragement and applause. To me they originally owe nothing, 
but a healthy, sanguine constitution. Under your care they 
have thriven. To you they are indebted for whatever strength 
or beauty they possess. AVhen kings and ministers are for- 
gotten, when the force and direction of personal satire is no 
longer understood, and when measures are only felt in their 
remotest consequences, this book will, I believe, be found to 
contain principles, worthy to be transmitted to posterity. When 
you leave the unimpaired, hereditary freehold to your children, 
you do but half your duty.' Both liberty and property are pre- 
carious, unless the possessors have sense and spirit enough to 
defend them. This is not the language of vanity. If I am a 
vain man, my gratification lies within a narrow circle. I am 
the sole depositary of my own secret, and it shall perish 
with me.^ 

1 cannot doubt that you will unanimously assert the freedom 
of election, and vindicate your exclusive right to choose your 
representatives. But other questions have been started, on 
which your determination should be equally clear and unani- 
mous. Let it be impressed upon your minds, let it be instilled 
into your children, that the liberty of the press is the palladium 
of all the civil, political, and religious rights of an Englishman, 
and that the right of juries to return a general verdict, in all 
cases whatsoever, is an essential part of our constitution, not 
to be controlled or limited by the judges, nor in any shape ques- 
tionable by the legislature. The power of king, lords, and 
commons, is not an arbitrary power. They are the trustees, 
not the owners of the estate. The fee-simple is in US. They 

^ By hereditary freehold he evidently means the constitution in its original 
purity. 

2 Thus far, this declaration is true ; for though, at the time of the publication 
of the Letters, all eyes were directed to find out the author, and all ears open 
to every rumor that might lead to his detection, and though ever since, it has 
absorbed more of public thought and inquiry than any other mere literary 
question on record, we are about as much in the dark now, as when the first 
letter appeared in the " Public Advertiser." To more than twenty individuals 
have they, at different times, been attributed, and the claims of each have suc- 
cessively been considered as irrefutable until a stronger has succeeded to 
overturn them, and take his place. The two most prominent candidates for 
the authorship are Sir Philip Francis and Lord George Sackville. To me it 
has appeared that the claims of Home Tooke were as strong as either of 
these. The style of Junius in its polish and sarcasm, is not unlike Tooke's; 
and the controversy which Junius had with him may be considered as a feint, 
to divert the public attention. It is not a little remarkable that of all those 
who entered the lists of controversy with our author, no one had any reason 
to boast of the encounter but the able and acute author of the " Diversions of 
Purley." 



1760-1820.] THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 655 

cannot alienate, they cannot waste. When we say that the 
legislature is supreme, we mean that it is the highest power 
known to the constitution: — that it is the highest in comparison 
with the other subordinate powers established by the laws. In 
this sense, the word supreme is relative, not absolute. The 
power of the legislature is limited, not only by the general rules 
of natural justice, and the welfare of the community, but by the 
forms and principles of our particular constitution. If this doc- 
trine be not true, we must admit, that king, lords, and commons 
have no rule to direct their resokitions, but merely their own 
will and pleasure. They might unite the legislative and exe- 
cutive power in the same hands, and dissolve the constitution 
by an act of Parliament. But I am persuaded you Avill not 
leave it to the choice of seven hundred persons, notoriously cor- 
rupted by the crown, whether seven millions of their equals 
shall be freemen or slaves. 

These are truths unquestionable. — If they make no impres- 
sion, it is because they are too vulgar and notorious. But the 
inattention or indifference of the nation has continued too long. 
You are roused at last to a sense of your danger. — The remedy 
will soon be in your power. If Junius lives, you shall often 
be reminded of it. If, when the opportunity presents itself, 
you neglect to do your duty to yourselves and to posterity, — 
to God and to your country, I shall have one consolation left, 
in common with the meanest and basest of mankind. — Civil 
liberty may still last the life of Junius. 

TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER. 

Sir: — kn academical education has given you an unlimited 
command over the most beautiful figures of speech. Masks, 
hatchets, racks, and vipers dance through your letters in all the 
mazes of metaphorical confusion. These are the gloomy com- 
panions of a disturbed imagination; the melancholy madness of 
poetry, without the inspiration. I will not contend with you 
in point of composition. You are a scholar. Sir William, and, 
if I am truly informed, you write Latin with almost as much 
purity as English. Suffer me then, for I am a plain unlettered 
man, to continue that style of interrogation, which suits my 
capacity, and to which, considering the readiness of your an- 
swers, you ought to have no objection. * * * 

Do you then really think that, if I were to ask a most vir- 
tuous man whether he ever committed theft, or murder, it 
would disturb his peace of mind ? Such a question might, 



656 THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. [gEORGE III. 

perhaps, discompose the gravity of his muscles, but I believe it 
would little affect the tranquillity of his conscience. Examine 
your own breast, Sir William, and you will discover, that re- 
proaches and inquiries have no power to afflict either the man 
of unblemished integrity, or the abandoned profligate. It is the 
middle compound character which alone is vulnerable : the man, 
who, without firmness enough to avoid a dishonorable action, 
has feeling enough to be ashamed of it. * * * 

And now. Sir William, I shall take my leave of you for ever. 
Motives very different from any apprehension of your resent- 
ment, make it impossible you should ever know me. In truth, 
you have some reason to hold yourself indebted to me. From 
the lessons I have given you, you may collect a profitable in- 
struction for your future life. They will either teach you so 
to regulate your conduct, as to be able to set the most malicious 
inquiries at defiance ; or, if that be a lost hope, they will teach 
you prudence enough not to attract the public attention to a 
character, which will only pass without censure, when it passes 
without observation. Junius. 



TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 

Relinquishing all idle views of amendment to your grace, 
or of benefit to the public, let me be permitted to consider 
your character and conduct merely as a subject of curious 
speculation. — There is something in both, which distinguishes 
you not only from all other ministers, but all other men. It is 
not that you do wrong by design, but that you should never do 
right by mistake. It is not that your indolence and your 
activity have been equally misapplied, but that the first uniform 
principle, or, if I may call it, the genius of your life, should have 
carried you through every possible change and contradiction of 
conduct, without the momentary imputation or color of a virtue ; 
and that the wildest spirit of inconsistency should never once 
have betrayed you into a wise or honorable action. This, I 
own, gives an air of singularity to your fortune, as well as to 
your disposition. Let us look back together to a scene, in 
which a mind like yours' will find nothing to repent of. Let us 
try, my lord, how well you have supported the various relations 
in which you stood, to your sovereign, your country, your 
friends, and yourself. Give us, if it be possible, some excuse 
to posterity, and to ourselves, for submitting to your administra- 
tion. If not the abilities of a great minister, if not the integrity 

* This is a favorite mode of sarcasm with Junius. 



1760-1820.] THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 657 

of a patriot, or the fidelity of a friend, show us, at least, the 
firmness of a man. 

The character of the reputed ancestors of some men has 
made it possible for their descendants to be vicious in the 
extreme, without being degenerate. Those of your grace, for 
instance, left no distressing examples of virtue, even to their 
legitimate posterity, and you may look back with pleasure to 
an illustrious pedigree, in which heraldry has not left a single 
good quality upon record to insult or upbraid you.' You have 
better proofs of your descent, my lord, than the register of a 
marriage, or any troublesome inheritance of reputation. There 
are some hereditary strokes of character, by which a family 
may be as clearly distinguished as by the blackest features of 
the human face.^ Charles the First lived and died a hypocrite. 
Charles the Second was a hypocrite of another sort, and should 
have died upon the same scaffold. At the distance of a century, 
we see their different characters happily revived and blended 
in your grace. Sullen and severe without religion, profligate 
without gaiety, you live like Charles the Second, without being 
an amiable companion, and, for aught I know, may die as his 
father did, without the reputation of a martyr. 

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEDFORD.^ 

My Lord: — You are so little accustomed to receive any 
marks of respect or esteem from the public, that if, in the fol- 
lowing lines, a compliment or expression of applause should 
escape me, I fear you Avould consider it as a mockery of 5^our 
established character, and, perhaps, an insult to your under- 
standing. You have nice feelings, my lord, if we may judge 
from your resentments. Cautious, therefore, of giving offence, 
where you have so little deserved it, I shall leave the illustration 
of your virtues to other hands. Your friends have a privilege 
to play upon the easiness of your temper, or possibly they are 
better acquainted with your good qualities than I am. You 
have done good by stealth. The rest is upon record. You 
have still left ample room for speculation, when panegyric is 
exhausted. 

' The first Duke of Grafton was a natural son of Charles II. During the pro- 
gress of the Revolution he abandoned the Stuarts for King William ; and his 
descendants had hitherto generally ranked themselves among the party of the 
Whigs. 

2 The allusion here is to the dark complexion of the duke. 

^ This is one of the most labored of our author's letters : and perhaps there 
is none of them which displays, in so striking a manner, his unrelenting spirit. 

42 



658 THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. [gEORGE III. 

You are, indeed, a very considerable man. The highest 
rank; — a splendid fortune; and a name, glorious till it was 
yours, were sufficient to have supported you Avith meaner 
abilities than I think you possess. From the first you derived 
a constitutional claim to respect ; from the second, a natural 
extensive authority ; — the last created a partial expectation of 
hereditary virtues. The use you have made of these uncommon 
advantages might have been more honorable to yourself, but 
could not be more instructive to mankind. We may trace 
it in the veneration of your country, the choice of your friends, 
and in the accomplishment of every sanguine hope, which 
the public might have conceived from the illustrious name of 
Russell. 

The eminence of your station gave you a commanding pros- 
pect of your duty. The road, which led to honor, was open 
to your view. You could not lose it by mistake, and you had 
no temptation to depart from it by design. Compare the natural 
dignity and importance of the richest peer of England; — the 
noble independence, which he might have maintained in par- 
liament, and the real interest and respect, which he might have 
acquired, not only in Parliament, but through the whole king- 
dom ; compare these glorious distinctions with the ambition of 
holding a share in government, the emoluments of a place, the 
sale of a borough, or the purchase of a corporation ; and though 
you may not regret the virtues which create respect, you may 
see with anguish, how much real importance and authority you 
have lost. Consider the character of an independent virtuous 
Duke of Bedford ; imagine what he might be in this country, 
then reflect one moment upon what you are. If it be possible 
for me to withdraw my attention from the fact, I will tell you 
in theory what such a man might be. 

Conscious of his own weight and importance, his conduct in 
Parliament would be directed by nothing but the constitutional 
duty of a peer. He would consider himself as a guardian of 
the laws. Willing to support the just measures of government, 
but determined to observe the conduct of the minister with sus- 
picion, he would oppose the violence of faction with as much 
fi.rmness as the encroachments of prerogative. He would be 
as little capable of bargaining with the minister for places for 
himself, or his dependents, as of descending to mix himself in 
the intrigues of opposition. Whenever an important question 
called for his opinion in Parliament, he would be heard, by the 
most profligate minister, with deference and respect. His autho- 
rity would either sanctify or disgrace the measures of govern- 



1760-1820.] THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 659 

ment. The people would look up to him as to their protector, 
and a virtuous prince would have one honest man in his do- 
minions, in whose integrity and judgment he might safely con- 
fide. If it should be the will of Providence to afflict him with 
a domestic misfortune,' he would submit to the stroke, with 
feeling, but not without dignity. He would consider the people 
as his children, and receive a generous heart-felt consolation, in 
the sympathizing tears, and blessings of his country. 

Your grace may probably discover something more intelligible 
in the negative part of this illustrious character. The man I 
have described would never prostitute his dignity in Parliament 
by an indecent violence either in opposing or defending a 
minister. He would not at one moment rancorously persecute, 
at another basely cringe to the favorite of his sovereign. After 
outraging the royal dignity with peremptory conditions, little 
short of menace and hostility, he would never descend to the 
humility of soliciting an interview with the favorite, and of 
offering to recover, at any price, the honor of his friendship. 
Though deceived perhaps in his youth, he would not, through 
the course of a long life, have invariably chosen his friends 
from among the most profligate of mankind. His own honor 
would have forbidden him from mixing his private pleasures or 
conversation with jockeys, gamesters, blasphemers, gladiators, 
or buffoons. He would then have never felt, much less would 
he have submitted to the humiliating, dishonest necessity of 
engaging in the interest and intrigues of his dependents, of sup- 
plying their vices, or relieving their beggary, at the expense of 
his country. He would not have betrayed such ignorance, or 
such contempt of the constitution, as openly to avow, in a court 
of justice, the purchase and sale of a borough. He would not 
have thought it consistent with his rank in the state, or even 
with his personal importance, to be the little tyrant of a little 
corporation. He would never have been insulted with virtues, 
which he had labored to extinguish, nor suffered the disgrace 
of a mortifying defeat, which has made him ridiculous and 
contemptible, even to the few by whom he was not detested. 
I reverence the afflictions of a good man, — his sorrows are 
sacred. But how can we take part in the distresses of a man 
whom we can neither love nor esteem ; or feel for a calamity 
of which he himself is insensible ? Where was the father's 
heart, when he could look for, or find an immediate consolation 
for the loss of an only son, in consultations and bargains for a 



^ The duke lately lost his only son by a fall from his horse. 



660 THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. [gEORGE III. 

place at court, and even in the misery of balloting at the India 
House ! 



FROM HIS LETTER TO THE KING.^ 

To the Printer of the " Public Advertisers^ 

When the complaints of a brave and powerful people are 
observed to increase in proportion to the wrongs they have 
suffered ; when, instead of sinking into submission, they are 
roused to resistance, the time will soon arrive at which every 
inferior consideration must yield to the security of the sovereign, 
and to the general safet}^ of the state. There is a moment of 
difficulty and danger, at which flattery and falsehood can no 
longer deceive, and simplicity itself can no longer be misled. 
Let us suppose it arrived. Let us suppose a gracious, well- 
intentioned prince, made sensible at last of the great duty he 
owes to his people, and of his own disgraceful situation; that 
he looks round him for assistance, and asks for no advice, but 
how to gratify the wishes, and secure the happiness of his 
subjects. Li these circumstances, it may be matter of curious 
speculation to consider, if an honest man were permitted to 
approach a king, in what terms he would address himself to his 
sovereign. Let it be imagined, no matter how improbable, that 
the first prejudice against his character is removed, that the 
ceremonious difficulties of an audience are surmounted, that he 
feels himself animated by the purest and most honorable affec- 
tions to his king and country, and that the great person, whom 
he addresses, has spirit enough to bid him speak freely, and 
understanding enough to listen to him with attention. Unac- 
quainted with the vain impertinence of forms, he would deliver 
his sentiments with dignity and firmness, but not without 
respect. 

Sir: — It is the misfortune of your life, and originally the 
cause of every reproach and distress which has attended your 
government, that you should never have been acquainted with 
the language of truth, until you heard it in the complaints of 
your people. It is not, however, too late to correct the error 
of your education. We are still inclined to make an indulgent 

> This celebrated letter to the king is, perhaps, the most remarkable politi- 
cal address ever published in England. At the time of its appearance it made 
a very great impression upon the public mind ; and the importance which the 
author himself attached to it, is evinced by the following note which he ad- 
dressed to his printer, announcing it: "I am now meditating a capital, and 
I hope a final piece." 



1760-1820.] THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 661 

allowance for the pernicious lessons you received in your youth, 
and to form the most sanguine hopes from the natural benevo 
lence of your disposition. We are far from thinking you 
capable of a direct, deliberate purpose to invade those original 
rights of your subjects, on which all their civil and political 
liberties depend. Had it been possible for us to entertain a 
suspicion so dishonorable to your character, we should long 
since have adopted a style of remonstrance very distant from 
the humility of complaint. The doctrine inculcated by our 
laws. That the king can do no wrongs is admitted without 
reluctance. We separate the amiable, good-natured prince, 
from the folly and treachery of his servants, and the private 
virtues of the man, from the vices of his government. Were it 
not for this just distinction, I know not whether your majesty's 
condition, or that of the English nation, would deserve most 
to be lamented. I would prepare your mind for a favorable 
reception of truth, by removing every painful, offensive idea of 
personal reproach. Your subjects, sir, wish for nothing but 
that, as they are reasonable and affectionate enough to separate 
your person from your government, so you, in your turn, 
should distinguish between the conduct which becomes the 
permanent dignity of a king, and that which serves only to 
promote the temporary interest and miserable ambition of a 
minister. 

You ascended the throne with a declared, and, I doubt not, 
a sincere resolution of giving universal satisfaction to your sub- 
jects. You found them pleased with the novelty of a young 
prince, whose countenance promised even more than his words, 
and loyal to you not only from principle, but passion. It was 
not a cold profession of allegiance to the first magistrate, but a 
partial, animated attachment to a favorite prince, the native of 
their country. They did not wait to examine your conduct, 
nor to be determined by experience, but gave you a generous 
credit for the future blessings of your reign, and paid you in 
advance the dearest tribute of their affections. Such, sir, was 
once the disposition of a people, who now surround your throne 
with reproaches and complaints. Do justice to yourself. Banish 
from your mind those unworthy opinions with which some 
interested persons have labored to possess you. Distrust the 
men who tell you that the English are naturally light and 
inconstant ; — that they complain without a cause. Withdraw 
your confidence equally from all parties: from ministers, favor- 
ites, and relations ; and let there be one moment in your life, in 
which you have consulted your own understanding. * * 



662 THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. [gEORGE III. 

You have still an honorable part to act. The affections of 
your subjects may still be recovered. But before you subdue 
their hearts, you must gain a noble victory over your own. 
Discard those little, personal resentments which have too long 
directed your public conduct. Pardon this man' the remainder 
of his punishment; and if resentment still prevails, make it, 
what it should have been long since, an act not of mercy, but 
contempt. He will soon fall back into his natural station, — a 
silent senator, and hardly supporting the weekly eloquence of 
a newspaper. The gentle breath of peace would leave him on 
the surface, neglected and unremoved. It is only the tempest 
that lifts him from his place. 

Without consulting your minister, call together your whole 
council. Let it appear to the public that you can determine 
and act for yourself. Come forward to your people. Lay 
aside the wretched formalities of a king, and speak to your 
subjects with the spirit of a man, and in the language of a 
gentleman. Tell them you have been fatally deceived. The 
acknowledgment will be no disgrace, but rather an honor to 
your understanding. Tell them you are determined to remove 
every cause of complaint against your government; that you 
will give your confidence to no man, who does not possess the 
confidence of your subjects ; and leave it to themselves to deter- 
mine, by their conduct at a future election, whether or no it 
be in reality the general sense of the nation, that their rights 
have been arbitraril}^ invaded by the present House of Commons, 
and the constitution betrayed. They will then do justice to 
their representatives and to themselves. 

These sentiments, sir, and the style they are conveyed in, 
may be offensive, perhaps, because they are new to you. Ac- 
customed to the language of courtiers, you measure their affec- 
tions by the vehemence of their expressions ; and, when they 
only praise you indirectly, you admire their sincerity. But 
this is not a time to trifle with your fortune. They deceive 
you, sir, who tell you that you have many friends, whose affec- 
tions are founded upon a principle of personal attachment. The 
first foundation of friendship is not the power of conferring 
benefits, but the equality with which they are received, and 
may be returned. The fortune, which made you a king, for- 
bade you to have a friend. It is a law of nature which cannot 
be violated with impunity. The mistaken prince, who looks 

^ Mr. Wilkes. 



1760-1820.] THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 663 

for friendship, will find a favorite, and in that favorite the ruin 
of his affairs. 

The people of England are loyal to the house of Hano\^er, 
not from a vain preference of one family to another, but from 
a conviction that the establishment of that family was necessary 
to the support of their civil and religious liberties. This, sir, 
is a principle of allegiance equally solid and rational : — fit for 
Englishmen to adopt, and well worthy of your majesty's en- 
couragement. We cannot long be deluded by nominal distinc- 
tions. The name of Stuart, of itself, is only contemptible ; — 
armed with the sovereign authority, their principles are for- 
midable. The prince, who imitates their conduct, should be 
warned by their example; and while he plumes himself upon 
the security of his title to the crown, should remember, that as 
it was acquired by one revolution, it may be lost by another. 

Junius. 

THE king's honor THAT OF THE PEOPLE.' 

The ministry, it seems, are laboring to draw a line of dis- 
tinction between the honor of the crown and the rights of the 
people. This new idea has yet been only started in discourse, 
for in effect both objects have been equally sacrificed. I neither 
understand the distinction, nor what use the ministry propose 
to make of it. The king's honor is that of his people. Their 
real honor and real interest are the same. — I am not contending 
for a vain punctilio. A. clear, unblemished character compre- 
hends not only the integrity that will not offer, but the spirit 
that will not submit to an injury ; and whether it belongs to an 
individual or to a community, it is the foundation of peace, of 
independence, and of safety. Private credit is wealth ; — public 
honor is security. — The feather that adorns the royal bird, sup- 
ports its flight. Strip him of his plumage and you fix him to 
the earth. ^ Junius. 

- From Letter XLII. 

- It was in answer to the XLII. Letter that Dr. Johnson wrote his pamphlet 
entitled, " Thoughts on the late Transactions respecting the Falkland Is- 
lands ;" a pamphlet which gave so much satisfaction to the ministry, that to 
express their gratitude, they are said to have doubled his pension. To this 
pamphlet, however, though a very able one, Junius made no reply. He pro- 
bably saw either that he had met with an antagonist who was in all respects, 
except in mere delicacy of taste, his equal ; or he might not choose to engage 
in a protracted controversy, which would have increased the danger of his 
being detected. 



664 THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. [^GEORGE III. 



ENCOMIUM ON LORD CHATHAM. 

It seems I am a partisan of the great leader of the opposition. 
If the charge had been a reproach, it should have been better 
supported. I did not intend to make a public declaration of 
the respect I bear Lord Chatham. I well knew what unworthy 
conclusions would be drawn from it. But I am called upon to 
deliver my opinion, and surely it is not in the litde censure of 
Mr. Home to deter me from doing signal justice to a man, who, 
I confess, has grown upon my esteem. As for the common, 
sordid views of avarice, or any purpose of vulgar ambition, I 
question whether the applause of Junius would be of service to 
Lord Chatham. My vote will hardly recommend him to an 
increase of his pension, or to a seat in the cabinet. But if his 
ambition be upon a level with his understanding; — if he judges 
of what is truly honorable for himself, with the same superior 
genius, which animates and directs him, to eloquence in debate, 
to wisdom in decision, even the pen of Junius shall contribute 
to reward him. Recorded honors shall gather round his monu- 
ment, and thicken over him. It is a solid fabric, and will 
support the laurels that adorn it. I am not conversant in the 
language of panegyric. — These praises are extorted from me; 
but they will wear well, for they have been dearly earned. 

TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE LORD CAMDEN. 

My Lord : — I turn with pleasure, from that barren waste, in 
which no salutary plant takes root, no verdure quickens, to a 
character fertile, as I willingly believe, in every great and good 
qualification. I call upon you, in the name of the English na- 
tion, to stand forth in defence of the laws of your country, and 
to exert, in the cause of truth and justice, those great abilities, 
with which you were entrusted for the benefit of mankind. 
Your lordship's character assures me that you will assume that 
principal part, which belongs to you, in supporting the laws of 
England, against a wicked judge, who makes it the occupation 
of his life, to misinterpret and pervert them. If you decline 
this honorable office, I fear it will be said that, for some months 
past, you have kept too much company with the Duke of 
Grafton. When the contest turns upon the interpretation of 
the laws, you cannot, without a formal surrender of all your 
reputation, yield the post of honor even to Lord Chatham. 
Considering the situation and abilities of Lord Mansfield, I do 
not scruple to affirm, with the most solemn appeal to God for 
my sincerity, that, in my judgment, he is the very worst and 



1760-1820.] cowPER. 665 

most dangerous man in the kingdom. Thus far I have done 
my duty in endeavoring to bring him to punishment. But mine 
is an inferior, ministerial office in the temple of justice. — I have 

bound the victim, and dragged him to the altar. 

****** 

The man, who fairly and completely answers my arguments, 
shall have my thanks and my applause. My heart is already 
with him. — I am ready to be converted. — I admire his morality, 
and would gladly subscribe to the articles of his faith. Grate- 
ful, as I am, to the Good Being, whose bounty has imparted to 
me this reasoning intellect, whatever it is, I hold myself pro- 
portionably indebted to him, from whose enlightened under- 
standing another ray of knowledge communicates to mine. But 
neither should I think the most exalted faculties of the human 
mind, a gift worthy of the divinity ; nor any assistance, in the 
improvement of them, a subject of gratitude to my fellow-crea- 
ture, if I were not satisfied, that really to inform the under- 
standing corrects and enlarges the heart. Junius. 



WILLIAM COWPER, 1731—1800. 

William Cowpek, "the most popular poet of his generation, and the 
best of English letter-writers," as the poet Southey terms him, was born 
in Berkhamstead, in Bedfordshire, Nov. 15, 1731. His father, the Rev. 
John Cowper, was the rector of that place. From infancy he had a delicate 
and extremely susceptible constitution, — a misfortune that was aggravated 
by the loss of an affectionate mother, who died when he was only six years 
old. The intense love with which he cherished her memory during the rest 
of his life, may be known from that most affecting poem which he wrote on 
contemplating her picture. At the age of ten he was sent to Westminster 
School, where he stayed till he was eighteen ; and though he pursued his 
studies diligently while there, he could never look back upon those years 
without horror, as he remembered the despotic tyranny exercised over him 
by the older boys: — a shameful practice, still, in a degree, maintained in 
the English schools. 

Afier leaving school, he spent three years in an attorney's office, and then 
entered the Middle Temple, in which he continued eleven years, devoting 
his tim.e, however, to poetry and general literature more than to law. In 
1763 the offices of Clerk of the Journals, reading Clerk, and Clerk of the 
committees of the House of Lords, which were all at the disposal of a cousin 
of Cowper's, became vacant about the same lime. The two last were con- 
ferred on Cowper, but the idea of appearing, and reading before the House 
of Lords so overwhelmed him, that he resigned the offices almost as soon 
as they were accepted. But as his patrimony was nearly spent, his friends 



666 COWPER. [gEORGE III. 

procured for him the office of Clerk of the Journals, thinking that his per- 
sonal appearance at the House would not be required. But he was unex- 
pectedly summoned to an examination at the bar of the House, before he 
could be allowed to take the office. The thoughts of this so preyed upon 
his mind, as to shatter his reason, and he actually made attempts upon his 
own life. He was therefore removed to the house of Dr. Cotton, at St, 
Albans, with whom he continued about eighteen months. 

On his recovery he was so fortunate as to find friends who were able to 
soothe his melancholy, direct his genius, and make his time pass happily 
away. In June, 1765, his brother took him to Huntingdon to board. Here 
he was introduced to the family of the Rev. Mr. Unwin, who was the cler- 
gyman of the place. It consisted of the father, Mrs. Unwin, and a son and 
daughter just arrived at majority. Cowper says of them, in one of his letters, 
"they are the most agreeable people imaginable ; quite sociable, and as free 
from the ceremonious civility of country gentle folks as any I ever met with. 
They treat me more like a near relation than a stranger, and their house is 
always open to me." Much to his joy, they agreed to receive him into 
their house as a boarder. He had been there, however, but two years, 
when Mr. Unwin, senior, died, and Cowper accompanied Mrs. Unwin and 
her daughter to a new residence, which they chose at Olney, in Bucking- 
hamshire. Here he formed an intimate friendship with the Rev. Mr. New- 
ton of that place, with whom he long maintained a Christian intercourse, 
delightful and profitable to both parties. 

In 1773 Cowper was visited by a second attack of mental derangement, 
which showed itself in extreme paroxysms of religious despondency. It 
lasted for about four years, during which period Mrs. Unwin watched over 
him with a tenderness and devotion truly maternal. As he began to recover, 
he betook himself to various amusements, such as taming hares and making 
bird cages, which pastimes he diversified with fight reading. Hitherto his 
poetic faculties had lain nearly dormant; but in the winter of 1750-81 he 
prepared the first volume of his poems for the press, consisting of " Table- 
Talk," "Hope," " The Progress of Error," " Charity," &c., which was 
pubUshed in 1782, but it did not attract much attention till the appearance 
of the Task. 

In the same year that he published his first volume, an elegant and ac- 
complished visitant came to Olney, with whom Cowper formed an acquaint- 
ance that was, for some time, a most delightful one to him. This was 
Lady Austen, the widow of Sir Robert Austen. She had wit, gayety, 
agreeable manners, and elegant taste. While she enlivened Cowper's un- 
equal spirits by her conversation, she was also the task- mistress of his Muse. 
He began his great original poem, "The Task," at her suggestion,^ and 

^ One day Lady Austen requested him to try his powers on blank verse: 
" But," said he, " I have no subject." " Oh you can write on anything," she 
replied ; " take this sofa." Hence the beginning of the Task, 
I sing the Sofa. * * * 
The theme, though humble, yet august and proud 
Th' occasion — for the fair commands the song. 



1760-1820.] cowPER. 667 

was exhorted by her to undertake the translation of Homer. So much 
cheerfulness seems to have beamed upon his sequestered life from the influ- 
ence of her society, that he gave her the endearing appellation of Sister 
Anne.* But his devoted old friend, Mrs. Unwin, looked with no little 
jealousy upon the ascendancy of a female, so much more fascinating than 
herself, over Cowper's mind ; and, appealing to his gratitude for her past 
services, she gave him his choice of either renouncing Lady Austen's ac- 
quaintance or her own. Cowper decided upon adhering to the friend who 
had watched over him in his deepest afflictions ; and sent Lady Austen a 
valedictory letter, couched in terms of regret and regard, but which neces- 
sarily put an end to their acquaintance. Whether in making this decision 
he sacrificed a passion or only a friendship for Lady Austen, it must be 
impossible to tell; but it has been said that the remembrance of a deep and 
devoted attachment of his youth, was never effaced by any succeeding 
impressions of the same nature ; and that his fondness for Lady Austen was 
as platonic as for Mary Unwin. The sacrifice, however, cost him much 
pain ; and is, perhaps, as much to be admired as regretted. 2 

In 1784 appeared his "Task." a poem which, as Hazlitt well remarks, 
contains "a number of pictures of domestic comfort and social refinement 
which can hardly be forgotten but with the language itself." The same year 
he began his " Tirocinium," a poem on the subject of education, the object 
of which was to censure the want of discipline, and the inattention to morals, 
which prevailed in public schools. In the same year also he commenced his 
translation of Homer, which was finished in 1791, and which is, on the 
whole, the best translation of Homer that we possess : that is, it gives us the 
best idea of the style and manner and sentiments of the great Grecian bard: 
for having adopted blank verse, he had to make no sacrifices of meaning or 
language to rhyme. 

In the mean time, the loss of Lady Austen was, in a degree, made up by 
his cousin Lady Hesketh, who, two years after the publication of the "Task," 
paid him a visit at Olney, and settling at Weston Hall, in the immediate 
neighborhood, provided a comfortable abode for him and Mrs. Unwin there, 
to which they removed in 1786; and here he executed his translation of 
Homer. 

In 1792, the poet Hay ley, afterwards his biographer, made him a visit at 
Weston, having corresponded with him previously. Of him, Cowper, in 

' " Lady Austen's conversation had as happy an effect upon the melancholy 
spirit of Cowper as the harp of David upon Saul. Whenever the cloud seemed 
to be coming over him, her sprightly powers were exerted to dispel it. One 
afternoon, (Oct., 1782,') when he appeared more than usually depressed, she 
told him the story of John Gilpin, which had been told to her in her child- 
hood, and which, in her relation, tickled his fancy as much as it has that of 
thousands and tens of thousands since, in his. The next morning he said to 
her that he had been kept awake during the greater part of the night by think- 
ing of the story and laughing at it, and that he had turned it into a ballad. 
The ballad was sent to Mr. Unwin, who said, in reply, that it had made him 
laugh tears," — Southey. 

^ See Campbell's Specimens, vol. vii. page 346. 



668 COWPER. [gEORGE III. 

one of his letters, thus writes: "Everybody here has fallen in love with 
him, and wherever he goes everybody must. We have formed a friendship 
that, I trust, will last for life, and render us an edifying example to all future 
poets." While Hayley was with him, Mrs. Unwin had a severe paralytic 
stroke, which rendered her helpless for the rest of her life. To this most 
excellent woman, to whom we are indebted, perhaps, as the instrument of 
preserving Cowper's reason, and it may be his life, he addressed one of the 
most touching, and perhaps the most widely known of all his poems — " To 
Mary." Mr. Hayley says he believes it to be the last original piece he pro- 
duced at Weston, and that he doubts whether any language on earth can 
exhibit a specimen of verse more exquisitely tender. 

In 1794 his unhappy malady returned upon him with increased violence, 
and Lady Hesketh, with most commendable zeal and disinterestedness, de- 
voted herself to the care of the two invalids. Mr. Hayley found him, on a 
third visit, plunged into a sort of melancholy torpor, so that when it was an- 
nounced to him that his majesty had bestowed on him a pension of i^300 a 
year, he seemed to take no notice of it. The next year it was thought best 
for both Cowper and Mrs. Unwin, that their location should be changed, and 
accordingly they were removed to the house of his kinsman, Mr. Johnson, 
at North Tuddenham, in Norfolk. The removal, however, had no good 
eifect upon either, and the next year Mrs. Unwin died. Cowper would not 
believe she was dead, when the event was broken to him, and desired to'see 
her. Mr. Johnson accompanied him to the room where lay her remains. 
He looked upon her for a few moments, then started away with a vehement, 
unfinished exclamation of anguish, and never afterwards uttered her name. 

In the year 1799, some power of exertion returned to him; he completed 
the revisal of his Homer, and wrote the last original piece that he ever com- 
posed — " The Cast- Away." It is founded on an incident mentioned in one 
of Anson's Voyages, and when we consider the circumstances under which 
it was written, and the parallelism constantly preying upon the diseased 
mind of the author, it is one of the most affecting pieces that ever was com- 
posed. His own end was now drawing near, and on the 5th of April, ISOO, 
he breathed his last. 

Cowper is eminently the David of English poetry, pouring forth, Hke the 
great Hebrew bard, his ov^n deep and warm feelings in behalf of moral and 
religious truth. " His language," says Campbell, " has such a mascuUne, 
idiomatic strength, and his manner, whether he rises into grace or falls into 
neghgence, has so much plain and familiar freedom, that we read no poetry 
with a deeper conviction of its sentiments having come from the author's 
heart ; and of the enthusiasm, in whatever he describes, having been un- 
feigned and unexaggerated. He impresses us with the idea of a being, 
whose fine spirit had been long enough in the mixed society of the world to 
be polished by its intercourse, and yet withdrawn so soon as to retain an 
unworldly degree of purity and simplicity." And a writer in the Retro- 
spective Review remarks, that "the delightful freedom of his manner, so 
acceptable to those who had long been accustomed to a poetical school of 
which the radical fault was constraint ; his noble and tender morality ; his 



1760-1820.] cowPER. 669 

fervent piety ; his glowing and well expressed patriotism ; his descriptions, 
unparalleled in vividness and accuracy since Thomson; his playful humor 
and his powerful satire ; the skilful construction of his verse, at least in the 
'Task,' and the refreshing variety of that fascinating poem, — all together 
conspired to render him highly popular, both among the multitude of com- 
mon readers, and among those who, possessed of poetical powers themselves, 
were capable of intimately appreciating those of a real poet." 

We might thus fill many pages with encomiastic remarks upon the poetry 
of Cowper, but the reader would rather taste of the original for himself.' 



THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD IN ALL THINGS. 

Happy the man, who sees a God employ"d 
In all the good and ill that checker life ! 
Resolving all events, with their effects 
And manifold results, into the will 
And arbitration wise of the Supreme. 
Did not his eye rule all things, and intend 
The least of our concerns ; (since from the least 
The greatest oft originate ;) could chance 
Find place in bis dominion, or dispose 
One lawless particle to thwart his plan; 
Then God might be surpris'd, and unforeseen 
Contingence might alarm him, and disturb 
The smooth and equal course of his affairs. 
This truth Philosophy, though eagle-eyxl 
In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks ; 
And, having found his instrument, forgets, 
Or~ disregards, or, more presumptuous still, 
Denies the power that wields it. God proclaims 
His hot displeasure against foolish men. 
That live an atheist life : involves the Heaven 
In tempests ; quits his grasp upon the winds, 
And gives them all their fmy ; bids a plague 
Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin, 
And putrefy the breath of blooming health. 
He calls for Famine, and the meagre fiend 
Blows mildew from between his shrivelfd lips. 
And taints the golden ear. He springs his mines. 
And desolates a nation at a blast. 
Forth steps the spruce Philosopher, and tells 
Of homogeneal and discordant springs, 
And principles; of causes, liow^ they work 
By necessary laws their sure effects 
Of action and reaction : he has found 

'■ Read Hayley's Life, a most interesting piece of biography — Grimshaw'3 
Life, prefixed to his edition in 8 vols., and Southey's Life, prefixed to his 
edition in 15 vols. The latter is the best edition of the poet. Read, also, 
articles in the Edinburgh Review, ii. 64, and iv. 273, and in the Quarterly, 
xvi. 116, and xxx. 185. Also, an article in Jeffries' Miscellanies. 



670 COWPER. [gEORGE III. 

The source of the disease that nature feels, 

And bids the world take heart and banish fear. 

Thou fool ! will thy discov'ry of the cause 

Suspend th' effect, or heal it? Has not God 

Still wrought by means since first he made the world ? 

And did he not of old employ his means 

To drown it ? What is his creation less 

Than a capacious reservoir of means, 

Form'd for his use, and ready at his will ? 

Go, dress thine eyes with eye-salve ; ask of Him 

Or ask of whomsoever he has taught : 

And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all. 



TRUE PHILOSOPHY. 

Philosophy, baptiz'd 
In the pure fountain of eternal love, 
Has eyes indeed; and viewing all she sees 
As meant to indicate a God to man. 
Gives Him his praise, and forfeits not her own. 
Learning has borne such fruit in other days 
On all her branches : Piety has found 
Friends in the friends of science, and true pray'r 
Has fiow'd from lips wet with Castalian dews. 
Such was thy wisdom, Newton, child-like sage ! 
Sagacious reader of the works of God, 
And in his word sagacious. Such, too, thine, 
Milton, whose genius had angelic wings. 
And fed on manna ! And such thine, in whom 
Our British Themis gloried with just cause, 
Immortal Hale! for deep discernment prais'd, 
And sound integrity, not more than fam'd 
For sanctity of manners undefil'd. 



THE GEOLOGIST AND COSMOLOGIST.i 

Some drill and bore 
The solid earth, and from the strata there 
Extract a register, by which we learn, 
That he who made it and reveal'd its date 
To Moses, was mistaken in its age. 

^ In the early history of geology many good and pious people were con- 
cerned, lest such discoveries should be made as would invalidate the Mosaic 
account of the creation. But how groundless have all their fears proved ! 
Truth is one, and God's works can never be in conflict with his Word. Of 
the whole race of " spruce philosophers," as Cowper calls them, even the 
infidel Voltaire could thus write: "philosophers put themselves, without 
ceremony, in the place of God, and destroy and renew the world after their 
own fashion." " From the time of Buffon," says Dr. Wiseman, in his learned 
Lectures on Science and Revealed Religion, " system rose beside system, like 
the moving pillars of the desert, advancing in threatening array ; but like 



1760-1820.J cowPER. 671 

Some, more acute, and more industrious still, 
Contrive creation ; travel nature up 
To the sharp peak of her sublimest height, 
And tell us whence the stars ; why some are fix'd, 
And planetary some ; what gave them first 
Rotation, from what fountain flow'd their light. 
Great contest follows, and much learned dust 
Involves the combatants ; each claiming truth, 
And truth disclaiming both. And thus they spend 
The little wick of life's poor shallow lamp 
In playing tricks M'ith nature, giving laws 
To distant worlds, and trifling in their own. 



WAR SLAVERY.^ 

O for a lodge in some vast wilderness, 

Some boundless contiguity of shade. 

Where rumor of oppression and deceit. 

Of unsuccessful or successful war, 

Might never reach me more ! My ear is pain'd, 

My soul is sick with eviy day's report 

Of wrong and outrage with which earth is fiU'd. 

There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart; 

It does not feel for man ; the natural bond 

Of brotherhood is sever'd, as the flax. 

That falls asunder at the touch of fire. 

He finds his fellow guilty of a skin 

Not color'd like his own ; and having power 

T' enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause 

Dooms and devotes him as a lawful prey. 

Lands intersected by a narrow frith 

Abhor each other. Mountains interpos'd 

Make enemies of nations, who had else 

Like kindred drops been mingled into one. 

Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys ; 

And worse than all, and most to be deplor'd, 

As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, 



them, they were fabrics of sand ; and though in 1806 the French Institute 
counted more than eighty such theories of geology hostile to Scripture his- 
tory, not one of them has stood till now, or deserves to be recorded." And 
Turner, in his learned work on Chemistry, says, " of all the wonders of ge- 
ology, none is so wonderful as the confidence of the several theorists." 

' Upon this and other pieces of Cowper in behalf of the poor slave, the 
poet Campbell thus truthfully as well as feelingly remarks : " Poetical ex- 
positions of the horrors of slavery may, indeed, seem very unlikely agents in 
contributing to destroy it ; and it is possible that the most refined planter in 
the West Indies, may look with neither shame nor compunction on his own 
image, exposed in the pages of Cowper, as a being degraded by giving stripes 
and tasks to his fellow creatures. But such appeals to the heart of the com- 
munity are not lost. They fix themselves silently in the popular memory, and 
they become, at last, a part of that public opinion, which must, sooner or later, 
wrench the lash from the hand of the oppressor." — Specimens, vii. 364. 



673 COWPER. [gEORGE III. 

Chains him, and tasks him. and exacts his sweat 
With stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart, 
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast. 
Then what is man ? And what man, seeing this, 
And having human feelings, does not blush, 
And hang his head, to think himself a man? 
I would not have a slave to till my ground. 
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep. 
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth 
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd. 
No : dear as freedom is, and in my heart's 
Just estimation priz"d above all price, 
I had much rather be myself the slave, 
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. 
We have no slaves at home. — Then why abroad? 
And they themselves, once ferried o"er the wave 
That parts us, are emancipate and loos'd. 
Slaves cannot breathe in England ; if their lungs 
Receive our air, that moment they are free ; 
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.^ 
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud 
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it, then, 
And let it circulate through ev'ry vein 
Of all your empire : that, where Britain's pow'r 
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.2 

^ This alludes to the great case of Somerset, a slave who had been brought 
to England by his master, and who was about to be taken backc His case 
was argued before the judges three several times, and finally Lord INIansfield 
declared the opinion of the court, in May, 1772, that "as soon as any slave 
sets his foot upon English soil, he becomes free." 

"^ When Cowper wrote these lines, nearly a million of African slaves toiled 
in the British colonies. But the English abolitionists, led on by Sharp, and 
Wilberforce, and Clarkson, so earnestly portrayed their wrongs and plead their 
cause, that the great heart of the nation became at length fully aroused to the 
subject, and they were declared absolutely and unconditionally free on the 
1st of August, 1838. 

It was predicted that theft and plunder and murder would be the conse- 
quence, and the 1st of August was anticipated by all with the most intense 
interest. It came and passed with all the solemnity of a Sabbath day. The 
houses of worship were thronged the preceding evening, to welcome the 
advent of Liberty, and as the clock tolled out the hour of midnight, the assem- 
bled populace bowed the knee in prayer and praise to the God who had be- 
stowed it. Not a blow was struck in revenge — not an arm upraised in riot. 

Nine years have now elapsed, and they have borne witness to the constant 
and rapid improvement of the freedmen. Their food, clothing, and furniture 
are much better : nearly every family has a horse or a mule, and very many 
have several. They are willing to work steadily for moderate wages, and 
most of them remain on the estates of their former masters. Many have pur- 
chased land, and it is estimated that there are now 20,000 freeholders am,ong 
the emancipated peasantry of Jamaica alone. Marriage is now "honorable" 
among them ; the parental relation is better understood, and its duties better 
performed; education is appreciated; and churches have multiplied. The 
freedmen contribute liberally towards sustaining the ministration of the gospel 
among themselves, and are already beginning to stretch out their hands and 



1760-1820.] cowPER. 673 



KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM. 

Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one, 
Have ofttimes no connection. Knowledge dwells 
In heads replete with thoughts of other men ; 
Wisdom in miiids attentive to their own. 
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass. 
The mere materials with which Wisdom builds, 
Till smooth'd, and squar'd, and fitted to its place, 
Does but encumber whom it seems t' enrich. 
Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much ; 
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. 



MERCY TO ANIMALS. 

I would not enter on my list of friends, 
(Though grac'd with polished manners and fine sense. 
Yet wanting sensibility,) the man 
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. 
An inadvertent step may crush the snail 
That crawls at ev'ning in the public path; 
But he that has humanity, forewarn'd, 
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live. 
The creeping vermm, loathsome to the sight. 
And charg'd perhaps with venom, that intrudes, 
A visitor unwelcome, into scenes 
Sacred to neatness and repose, th' alcove, 
The chamber, or refectory, may die : 
A necessary act incurs no blame. 
Not so when, held within their proper bounds, 
And guiltless of offence, they range the air, 
Or take their pastime in the spacious field : 
There they are privileg'd: and he that hunts 
Or harms them there is guilty of a w^rong, 
Disturbs the economy of Nature's realm, 
Who, when she form'd, design'd them an abode. 
The sum is this : If man's convenience, health. 
Or safety, interfere, his rights and claims 
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs. 
Else they are all — the meanest things that are — 
As free to live, and to enjoy that hfe. 
As God was free to form them at the first, 
Who in his sov'reign wisdom made them all. 
Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons 
To love it too. 

to send forth their missionaries to their benighted father-land. For these 
condensed facts I am indebted to Rev. C. S. Renshaw, for many years a de- 
voted missionary among the blacks in Jamaica. 

43 



674 COWPER. [gEOBGE III. 



Some seek diversion in the tented field, 
And make the sorrows of mankind their sport. 
But \Yars a game, which, were their subjects wise. 
Kings should not play at. Nations would do well, 
T' extort their truncheons from the puny hands 
Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds 
Are gratified with mischief: and who spoil. 
Because men sufier it, their toy, the world. 



LIBERTY. 

'Tis liberty alone, that gives the fiow'r 
Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume; 
And we are weeds without it. All constraint, 
Except what wisdom lays on evil men. 
Is evil : hurts the faculties, impedes 
Their progress in the road of science; blinds 
The eyesight of discovery ; and begets. 
In those that sufier it, a sordid mind, 
Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit 
To be the tenant of man's noble form. 



PLEASURES OF A WINTER EVENING. 

Hark! "tis the twanging horn! o'er yonder bridge. 

That with its wearisome but needful length, 

Bestrides the wintry flood ; in which the moon 

Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright: — 

He comes, the herald of a noisy world, 

With spatterxl boots, strapp'd waist, and frozen looks. 

News from all nations lumb'ring at his back. 

True to his charge, the close-pack'd load behind, 

Yet careless what he brings, his one concern 

Is to conduct it to the destin"d inn ; 

And having dropp'd th' expected bag, pass on. 

He whistles as he goes, light-hearted %vretch. 

Cold and yet cheerful : messenger of grief 

Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some ; 

To him indifi"rent whether grief or joy. 

Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks. 

Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet 

With tears, that trickled down the writer's cheeks 

Fast as the periods from his fluent quill, 

Or charged with am"rous sighs of absent swains. 

Or nymphs responsive, equally afiect 

His horse and him, vmconscious of them all. 

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, 
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round, 



1760-1820.] cowPER. 675 

And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn 

Throws up a steamy column, and the cups, 

That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, 

So let us welcome peaceful ev'ning in . 

Not such his ev'ning, who with shining face 

Sweats in the crowded theatre, and, squeez'd 

And bor'd with elbow points through both his sides, 

Outscolds the ranting actor on the stage: 

Nor his, who patient stands till his feet throb. 

And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath 

Of patriots, bursting with heroic rage, 

Or placemen, all tranquillity and smiles. 

This folioi of four pages, happy work! 

Which not e'en critics criticise ; that holds 

Inquisitive attention, while I read. 

Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair, 

Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break ; 

What is it but a map of busy life. 

Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns ? 

Here runs the mountainous and craggy ridge 

That tempts Ambition. On the summit see 

The seals of office glitter in his eyes ; 

He climbs, he pants, he grasps them ! At his heels. 

Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends, 

And with a dext'rous jerk soon twists him down, 

And wins them, but to lose them in his turn. 

Here rills of oily eloquence, in soft 

Meanders lubricate the course they take; 

The modest speaker is asham'd and griev'd, 

T' engross a moment's notice; and yet begs, 

Begs a propitious ear. for his poor thoughts, 

However trivial all that he conceives. 

Sweet bashfulness ; it claims at least this praise : 

The dearth of information and good sense 

That it foretells us always comes to pass. 

Cataracts of declamation thunder here ; 

There forests of no meaning spread the page, 

In which all comprehension wanders, lost: 

While fields of pleasantry amuse us there. 

With merry descants on a nation's woes. 

The rest appears a wilderness of strange 

But gay confusion ; roses for the cheeks, 

And lilies for the brows of faded age. 

Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald, 

Heav'n, earth, and ocean, plundered of their sweets, 

Nectareous essences, Olympian dews. 

Sermons, and city feasts, and fav'rite airs, 

^Ethereal journeys, submarine exploits, 

And Katterfelto, with his hair on end 

At his own wonders, wond'ring for his bread. 

* The Newspaper. 



676 COWPER. [gEORGE III. 

'Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat, 

To peep at such a world ; to see the stir 

Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd ; 

To hear the roar she sends through all her gates, 

At a safe distance, where the dying sound 

Falls a soft murmur on th' uninjur'd ear. 

Thus sitting, and surveying thus at ease 

The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced 

To some secure and more than mortal height, 

That liberates and exempts me from them all. 
***** 

O Winter ! ruler of th' inverted year, 
I crown thee king of intimate delights, 
Pireside enjoyments, homeborn happiness, 
And all the comforts that the lowly roof 
Of undisturb'd Retirement, and the hours 
Of long, uninterrupted ev'ning, know. 
No ratth ng wheels stop short before these gates, 
No powder'd pert, proficient in the art 
Of sounding an alarm, assaults these doors 
Till the street rings; no stationary steeds 
Cough their own knell, while, heedless of the sound, 
The silent circle fan themselves, and quake. 
But here the needle plies its busy task, 
The pattern grows, the well-depicted flow'r, 
Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn, 
Unfolds its bosom ; buds, and leaves, and sprigs, 
And curling tendrils, gracefully dispos'd, 
Follow the nimble finger of the fair; 
A wreath, that cannot fade, or flow'rs that blow 
With most success when all besides decay. 
The poet's or historian's page by one 
Made vocal for th' amusement of the rest: 
The sprightly lyre, whose treasure of sweet sounds 
The touch from many a trembling chord shakes out ; 
And the clear voice symphonious, yet distinct, 
And in the charming strife triumphant still, 
Beguile the night, and set a keener edge 
On female industry : the threaded steel 
Flies swiftly, and unfelt the task proceeds. 

***** 

Discourse ensues, not trivial, yet not dull. 

Nor such as with a frown forbids the play 

Of fancy, or proscribes the sound of mirth : 

Nor do we madly, like an impious World, 

Who deem religion frenzy, and the God 

That made them an intruder on their joys, 

Start at his awful name, or deem his praise 

A jarring note. Themes of a graver tone 

Exciting oft our gratitude and love, 

While we retrace, with Mem'ry's pointing wand, 

That calls the past to our exact review, 



1760-1820.] cowPER. 677 

The dangers we have 'scaped, the broken snare, 
The disappointed foe, deliverance found 
Unlook'd for, life preserv'd, and peace restor'd — 
Fruits of omnipotent eternal love. 
* * * * * 

Is Winter hideous in a garb like this ? 
Needs he the tragic fur, the smoke of lamps, 
The pent-up breath of an unsaviy throng, 
To thaw him into feeling ; or the smart 
And snappish dialogue, that flippant wits 
Call comedy, to prompt him with a smile ? 
The self-complacent actor, when he views 
(Steahng a sidelong glance at a full house) 
The slope of faces, from the floor to th' roof 
(As if one master spring controll'd them all,) 
Relax'd into an universal grin, 
Sees not a countenance there, that speaks of joy 
Half so refin"d or so sincere as ours. 
Cards were superfluous here, with all the tricks 
That idleness has ever yet contriv'd 
To fill the void of an unfurnish'd brain, 
To palhate dulness, and give tune a shove. 
Tiixie, as he passes us, has a dove's wing, 
Unsoil'd, and swift, and of a silken sound; 
But the world's Time is Time in masquerade! 
Theirs, should I paint him, has his pinions fledg'd 
With motley plumes; and where the peacock shows 
His azure eyes, is tinctur'd black and red 
With spots quadrangular of diamond form ; 
Ensanguin'd hearts, clubs typical of strife, 
And spades, the emblem of untimely graves. 
What should be, and what was an hour-glass once, 
Becomes a dice-box, and a billiard mace 
Well does the work of his destructive scythe. 
Thus deck'd, he charms a World whom Fashion blinds 
To his true worth, most pleas'd when idle most : 
Whose only happy, are their idle hours. 
E'en misses, at whose age their mothers wore 
The backstring and the bib, assmne the dress 
Of womanhood, sit pupils in the school 
Of card devoted Time, and, night by night, 
Plac'd at some vacant corner of the board, 
Learn ev'ry trick, and soon play all the game. 



TO MARY. 

Autumn 0/ 1793. 

The twentieth year is well nigh past 

Since first our sky was overcast ; 

Ah, would that this might be the last! 

My Mary! 



678 cowpER. [geohge m. 

Thy spirits have a feinter flow, 

I see thee daily weaker grow ; 

■Twas my distress that brought thee low. 

My Mary! 

Thy needles, once a shining store. 
For my sake restless heretofore, 
Now rust disused, and shine no more. 

My Mary f 

For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil 
The same kind office for m.e still, 
Thy sight now seccHids not thy will, 

My Mary? 

But well thou play'dst the housewife's part } 
And all tby threads, with magic art, 
Have wound themselves about this heart. 

My ]Mary I 
Thy indistinct expressions seem 
Like language uttered in a dream : 
Yet me they charm, whate'er the theme. 

My Mary ? 

Thy silver locks, once auburn brightj 
Are still more lovely in my sight 
Than golden beams of orient light, 

My Mary f 

For, could I view nor them nor thee, 
What sight worth seeing could I see ? 
The sun would rise in vain for me. 

My Mscrjl 
Partakers of thy sad declkie, 
Thy hands their little force resign ; 
Yet gently pressed, press gently minOy 

My Maxyl 

Such feebleness of hmbs thou prov'st, 
That now, at every step thou mov'st, 
Upheld by two ; yet still thou lov'st, 

My Mary I 

And still to love, thongh pressed with ill, 
In wintry age to feel no chill. 
With me is to be lovely still. 

My Mary f 
But ah ! by constant heed I know, 
Ho"w oft the sadness that I show, 
Transforms thy smiles to looks of wo, 

Mj Mary t 
And should my future lot be cast 
With much resemblance of the past. 
Thy worn-out heart will break at last, 

My Mary! 



176^0-1820.] cowPER. 879 



PREACHING VERSUS PRACTICE, 

A youngster at school, more sedate than the rest, 
Had once his integrity put to the test 5 
His comrades had plotted an orchard to rob, 
And ask'd him to go and assist in the job. 

He was shoek'd, sir, like you, and answer'd — " Oh, no ! 
What! rob our good neighbor ? I pray you dont go! 
Besides the man's poor, his orchard's his bread, 
Then think of his children, for they must be fed," 

*' You speak very fine, and you look very grave, 
But apples we want, and apples we'll have ; 
If you will go with us, you shall have a share, 
If not, you shall have neither apple nor pear." 

They spoke, and Tom ponder'd — " I see they will go ; 
Poor man! what a pity to injure him so ! 
Poor man ! I would save him his fruit if I could, 
But staying behind will do him no good, 

^' If the matter depended alone upon me, 
His apples might hang till they dropp'd from the tree ; 
But since they will take them, I think I'll go too j 
He will lose none by me, though I get a few," 

His scruples thus silenced, Tom felt more at ease, 
And went with his comrades the apples to seize ; 
He blamed and protested, but Join'd in the plan ,• 
He shared in the plunder, but pitied the man. 



JOHN BUNYAN. 

thou, whom, borne on fancy's eager wing 
Back to the season of life's happy spring, 

1 pleas'd remember, and, while mem'ry yet 
Holds fast her office here, can ne'er forget ; 
Ingenious dreamer, in whose well told tale 
Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail; 
Whose hum'rous vein, strong sense, and simple style, 
May teach the gayest, make the gravest smile ; 
Witty, and weil-employ'd, and, like thy Lord, 
Speaking in parables his slighted word; 

I name thee not, lest so despis'd a name 

Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame : 

Yet even in transitory life's late day. 

That mingles all my brown with sober gray, 

Revere the man, whose pilgrim marks the road, 

And guides the progress of the soul to God. 

'T were well with most, if books, that could engage 

Their childhood, pleas'd them at a riper age ; 



680 COWPER. [GEORGE III. 

The man, approving what had charmed the boy. 
Would die at last in comfort, peace, and joy ; 
And not with curses on his heart, who stole 
The gem of truth from his unguarded soul. 



SONNET TO WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. 

Thy country, Wilberforce, with just disdain. 
Hears thee by cruel men and impious call'd 
Fanatic, for thy zeal to loose the enthrall'd 

From exile, public sale, and slavery's chain. 

Friend of the poor, the wronged, the fetter-gall'd, 

Fear not lest labor such as thine be vain. 

Thou hast achieved a part ; hast gain'd the ear 

Of Britain's senate to thy glorious cause; 

Hope smiles, joy springs, and though cold caution pause 
And weave delay, the better hour is near 
That shall remunerate thy toils severe, 

By peace for Afric, fenced with Britislr laws. 

Enjoy what thou hast won, esteem and love 

From all the just on earth, and all the blest above. 

ON THE RECEIPT OF HIS MOTHER's PICTURE. 

O that tliose lips had language ! Life has pass'd 

With me but roughly since I heard thee last. 

Those lips are thine — thy own sweet smile I see. 

The same, that oft in childhood solac'd me ; 

Voice only fails, else how distinct they say, 

" Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away !" 

The meek intelligence of those dear eyes 

(Blest be the art that can immortalize. 

The art that baffles Time's tyrannic claim 

To quench it) here shines on me still the same. 

Faitliful remembrancer of one so dear, 

welcome guest, though unexpected here ! 
Who bidd'st me honor with an artless song. 
Affectionate, a mother lost so long. 

1 will obey, not willingly alone, 

But gladly, as the precept were her own : 
And, while that face renews my filial grief, 
Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief, 
Shall steep me in Elysian reverie, 
A momentary dream, that thou art she. 

My mother ! when I learn'd that thou wast dead, 
Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed 1 
Hover'd thy spirit o'er thy sorr'wing son. 
Wretch even then, life's journey just begun? 
Perhaps thou gav'st me, though unfelt, a kiss ; ^ 
Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss — > 
Ah that maternal smile ! it answers— Yes. S 



1760-1820.] cowPER. 681 

I heard the bell toll'd on thy burial day, 

I saw the hearse, that bore thee slow away, 

And, turning from my nurs'ry window, drew 

A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu ! 

But was it such 1 — It was. — "Where thou art gone, 

Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown. 

May I but meet thee on that peacefvil shore, 

The parting word shall pass my lips no more ! 

Thy maidens griev'd themselves at my concern, 

Oft gave me promise of thy quick return. 

What ardently I wish'd, I long believ'd, 

And, disappointed still, was still deceiv'd. 

By expectation ev'ry day beguiUd, 

Dupe of to-mo7roiv, even from a child. 

Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went, 

Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent, 

I learn'd at last submission to my lot. 

But, though I less deplor'd thee, ne'er forgot. 

Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more, 
Children not thine have trod my nurs'ry floor ; 
And where the gard'ner Robin, day by day. 
Drew me to school along the public way. 
Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapp'd 
In scarlet mantle v^^arm, and velvet cap, 
"Tis now become a history little kno"wn. 
That once we call'd the past'ral house our own. 
Short liv'd possession ! but the record fair. 
That mem"ry keeps of all thy kindness there, 
Still outlives many a storm, that has eflac'd 
A thousand other themes less deeply trac'd. 
Thy nightly visits to my chamber made. 
That thou mightst know me safe and warmly laid ; 
Thy morning bounties ere I left my home, 
The biscuit, or confectionary plum ; 
The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestow'd 
By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glow'd ; 
All this, and more endearing still than all. 
Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall. 
Ne'er roughen'd by those cataracts and breaks, 
That humor interposed too often makes ; 
All this still legible in memory's page. 
And still to be so to my latest age. 
Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay 
Such honors to thee as my numbers may; 
Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere. 
Not scorn'd in Heav'n, though little notic"d here. 

Could Time, his flight revers'd, restore the hours, 
When, playing with thy vesture's tissu'd flow'rs. 
The violet, the pink, and jessamine, 
I prick'd them into paper with a pin, 
(And thou wast happier than myself the while, 
Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head, and smile,) 



682 COWPER. [gEORGE III. 

Could those few pleasant days again appear, 

Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here? 

I would not trust my heart — the dear dehght 

Seems so to be desir'd, perhaps I might, — 

But no— what here we call our life is such, 

So little to be lov'd, and thou so much, 

That I should ill requite thee to constrain 

Thy unbound spirit into bonds again. 

Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast 
(The storms all weather'd and the ocean cross'd) 
Shoots into port at some well-haven'd isle. 
Where spices breathe, and brighter seasons smile, 
There sits quiescent on the floods, that show 
Her beauteous form reflected clear below. 
While airs impregnated with incense play 
Around her, fanning light her streamers gay ; 
So thou, with sails how swift! hast reach'd the shore, 
"Where tempests never beat nor billows roar;" 
And thy lov'd consort on the dang'rous tide 
Of life long since has anchor'd by thy side. 
But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest, 
Always from port withheld, always distress'd — 
Me howling blasts drive devious, temp est- toss'd. 
Sails ripp'd, seams op'ning wide, and compass lost, 
And day by day some current's thwarting force 
Sets me more distant from a prosp'rous course. 
Yet the thought, that thou art safe, and he ! 
That thought is joy, arrive what may to me. 
My boast is not, that I deduce my birth 
From loins enthron'd, and rulers of the earth. 
But higher far my proud pretensions rise — 
The son of parents pass'd into the skies. 
And now, farewell — Time unrevok'd has run 
His wonted course, yet what I wish'd is done. 
By contemplation's help, not sought in vain, 
I seem t' have liv'd my childhood o'er again; 
To have renew'd the joys that once were mine, 
Without the sin of violating thine ; 
And, while the wings of Fancy still are free. 
And I can view this mimic show of thee, 
Time has but half succeeded in his theft — 
Thyself remov'd, thy pow'r to soothe me left. 



THE CAST AWAY. 

Obscurest night involved the sky, v 

The Atlantic billows roar'd, 
When such a destined wretch as I, 

Wash'd headlong from on board. 

This was the last original piece he ever wrote ; written March 20, 1799. 



1760-1820.] cowPER. 683 

Of friends, of hope, of all bereft, 
His floating home for ever left. 

No braver chief could Albion boast 

Than he with whom he went, 
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast 

With warmer wishes sent. 
He loved them both, but both in vain^ 
Nor him beheld, nor her again. 

Not long beneath the whelming brine, 

Expert to swim, he lay ; 
Nor soon he felt his strength decline, 

Or courage die away ; 
But waged with death a lasting strife^ 
Supported by despair of life. 

•nfle shouted : nor his friends had fail'd 

To check the vessel's course, 
But so the furious blast prevail'd. 

That pitiless perforce, 
They left their outcast mate behind, 
And scudded still before the wind. 



No poet wept him ; but the page 

Of narrative sincere. 
That tells his name, his worth, his age, 

Is wet with Anson's tear : 
And tears by bards or heroes shed 
Alike immortalize the dead. 

I therefore purpose not, or dream, 

Descanting on his fate, 
To give the melancholy theme 

A more enduring date ; 
But misery still delights to trace 
Its 'semblance in another's case. 

No voice divine the storm allay'd, 

No light propitious shone, 
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid, 

We perish'd, each alone : 
But I beneath a rougher sea. 
And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he. 

Cowper's prose works are confined almost exclusively to his lettefs^ 
These now, without dispute, take the very first rank in English epistolary 
literature. " There is something in the sweetness and facility of the diction, 
and more, perhaps, in the glimpse they afford of a pure and benevolent mind, 
that diffuses a charm over the whole collection, and communicates an in- 
terest that cannot always be commanded by performances of greater dignity 
and pretension. From them we now know almost as much of Cowper as 
we do of those authors who have spent their days in the centre and glare of 



684 COWPER. [gEORGE III. 

literary or fashionable society ; and they will continue to be read long after 
the curiosity is gratified to which, perhaps, they owed their first celebrity ; 
for the character with which they make us acquainted, will always attract 
by its rarity, and engage by its elegance. The feminine delicacy and purity 
of Cowper's manners and disposition, the romantic and unbroken retirement 
in which his life was passed, and the singular gentleness and modesty of his 
whole character, disarm him of those terrors that so often shed an atmo- 
sphere of repulsion around the persons of celebrated writers, and make us 
more indulgent to his weaknesses, and more delighted with his excellencies, 
than if he had been the centre of a circle of wits, or the oracle of a hterary 
confederacy. The interest of this picture is still further heightened by the 
recollection of that tremendous malady, to the visitations of which he was 
subject, and by the spectacle of that perpetual conflict which was maintained, 
through the greater part of his Ufe. between the depression of those consti- 
tutional horrors, and the gaiety that resulted from a playful imagination, and 
a heart animated by the mildest affections."^ 

But to form any just conception of the beauty of Cowper's Letters, very 
many of them must be read, and our pages here are too hmited to admit 
them. But we will venture one extract even at the risk of being hkened to 
him, who, as Dr. Johnson2 remarks, would recommend Shakspeare by select 
quotations. The following is from a letter to Lady Hesketh, dated Sep- 
tember 4, 1765. 



ON A PARTICULAR PROVIDENCE. 

How mysterious are the ways of Providence ! Why did I 
receive grace and mercy? Why was I preserved, afflicted for 
my good, received, as I trust, into favor, and blessed with the 
greatest happiness I can ever know or hope for in this life, 
while others were overtaken by the great arrest, unawakened, 
unrepenting, and every way unprepared for it? His infinite 
wisdom, to whose infinite mercy I owe it all, can solve these 
questions, and none beside him. If a free-thinker, as many a 
man miscalls himself, could be brought to give a serious answer 
to them, he would certainly say — " Without doubt, sir, you 
were in great danger, you had a narrow escape, a most for- 
tunate one, indeed." How excessively foolish, as well as 
shocking! As if life depended upon luck, and all that we are 
or can be, all that we have or hope for, could possibly be re- 
ferred to accident ! Yet to this freedom of thought it is owing 
that He, who, as our Saviour tells us, is thoroughly apprized 
of the death of the meanest of his creatures, is supposed to 
leave those whom he has made in his own image, to the mercy 

'■ Edinburgh Review, vol. iv., page 273. ^ ggg p^ge 596. 



1760-1820.] cowPER. 685 

of chance ; and to this, therefore, it is likewise owing that the 
correction which our Heavenly Father bestows upon us, that 
we may be fitted to receive his blessing, is so often disappointed 
of its benevolent intention, and that men despise the chastening 
of the Almighty. Fevers and all diseases are accidents, and long 
life, recovery at least from sickness, is the gift of the physician. 
No man can be a greater friend to the use of means upon these 
occasions than myself, for it were presumption and enthusiasm 
to neglect them. God has endued them with saiutary proper- 
ties on purpose that we might avail ourselves of them, other- 
wise that part of his creation were in vain. But to impute our 
recovery to the medicine, and to carry our views no further, is 
to rob God of his honor, and is saying in effect that he has 
parted with the keys of life and death, and, by giving to a drug 
the power to heal us, has placed our lives out of his own reach. 
He that thinks thus may as well fall upon his knees at once, 
and return thanks to the medicine that cured him, for it was 
certainly more immediately instrumental in his recovery than 
either the apothecary or the doctor. My dear cousin, a firm 
persuasion of the superintendence of Providence over all our 
concerns is absolutely necessary to our happiness. Without 
it, we cannot be said to believe in the Scripture, or practice any 
thing like resignation to his will. If I am convinced that no 
affliction can befall me without the permission of God, I am 
convinced, likewise, that he sees and knows that I am afflicted; 
believing this, I must in the same degree believe that, if I pray 
to him for deliverance, he hears me; I must needs know like- 
wise with equal assurance that, if he hears, he will also deliver 
me, if that will, upon the whole, be most conducive to my hap- 
piness ; and if he does not deliver me, I may be well assured 
that he has none but the most benevolent intention in declining 
it. He made us, not because we could add to his happiness, 
which was always perfect, but that we might be happy our- 
selves ; and will he not, in all his dispensations towards us, 
even in the minutest, consult that end for which he made us ? 
To suppose the contrary, is (which we are not always aware 
of) affronting every one of his attributes ; and at the same time 
the certain consequence of disbelieving his care for us is, that 
we renounce utterly our dependence upon him. In this view, 
it will appear plainly that the line of duty is not stretched too 
tight, when we are told that we ought to accept every thing at 
his hands as a blessing, and to be thankful even while we smart 
under the rod of iron with which he sometimes rules us. With- 



686 COWPER. [gEORGE III. 

out this persuasion, every blessing, however we may think 
ourselves happy in it, loses its greatest recommendation, and 
every affliction is intolerable. Death itself must be welcome 
to him who has this faith, and he who has it not, must aim at 
it, if he is not a madman. 



687 



QUESTIONS FOR EXAMINATION, 



WHEN THE WORK IS USED AS A 



COLLEGE OR SCHOOL TEXT-BOOK. 



SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE. 

Date of birth and death? In whose 
reign did he flourish ? Date of Ed- 
ward III. 's reign ? When did he leave 
England for foreign travel ? How long 
was he gone ? Through what coun- 
tries did he travel ? In what languages 
did he write his travels ? What en- 
titles him to great consideration ? 
What accounts did he give which were 
not believed at the time, but which 
later testimony has proved true ? How 
does he prove the spherical form of the 
earth ? Give his reasoning. 

JOHN WICLIF. 

Date of Wiclif's birth and death ? 
In whose reign did he flourish ? 
[f)iF"Here the scholar must not be 
governed by the name of the monarch 
at the top of the page over the 
author's name, for as the authors are 
arranged according to the dates of 
their death, some will be found to have 
died the very first or second year of a 
new king's reign ; of course, there- 
fore, they cannot be said to have 
"flourished" in his reign. Thus, 
though Wiclif died in the reign of 
Richard II., his great works were 
mostly written, and his great labors 
chiefly exerted in the reign of Edward 
III.; he, therefore, must be said to 
have " flourished" in the reign of that 
monarch.] What was he called? 
What does Milton say of him ? Where 
was he educated ? For what did he 
early distinguish himself? What title 
did he acquire ? What was hence- 
forth the great business of his life ? 



Repeat the quotation from Milton 
relative to Wiclif. State the com- 
parative merits of Wiclif and Luther, 
as reformers. Repeat the fine remark 
of Burnet. When did Wiclif die ? 
What did the Council of Constance de- 
cree ? What is the remark of Fuller ? 
Repeat the lines of Wordsworth, 
(note.) What is said of Wiclif's writ- 
ings ? What was his chief work ? 
What honor belongs to him? What 
did the papal clergy say of his labors ? 
(note.) 

JOHN BARBOUK. 

Date of Barbour's birth and death? 
To what country did he belong? In 
whose reign did he flourish ? What is 
the title of his chief work? What is 
its nature ? In what character there- 

I fore, is Barbour to be considered? 

j What does he say, himself, of his 
work ? Repeat the paraphrase of his 
Apostrophe to Freedom, (note.) [The 

I two last lines of the original are much 

I superior, and should be imbedded in 
the memory.] 

I 

I GEOFFRY CHAUCER. 

Date of Chaucer's birth and death ? 

! By what title is he distinctively known? 

I VVhat does Warton say of him ? In 

! whose reign did he flourish ? To what 

j family did he become connected by 

! marriage ? Where did he travel t 

, Who were the three chief scholars of 

Italy in the 14th century, and for what 

distinguished ? (note.) What public 

ofiice did Chaucer receive ? When 

did he die ? In what respect does 



688 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 



Chaucer resemble Cowper ? What is 
his great work ? From what did he 
take the idea ? What was the Deca- 
meron ? Its etymology ? Where was 
Canterbury ? Why were pilgrimages 
made there? In what respects is 
Chaucer's plan superior to Boccacio's ? 
What knowledge do the Canterbury 
Tales give us ? What great cause did 
they subsequently aid ? (note.) [Here 
the instructor may direct the scholar 
to commit to memory such extracts 
from the various authors, as he may 
deem best. Of those Trom Chaucer, I 
would recommend " The Parson."*] 
What are the four other principal 
works of Chaucer ? Give an account 
of « Troilus and Creseida." Of the 
" Romaunt of the Rose." Of " The 
House of Fame." Of " The Flower 
and the Leaf." Who has imitated 
Chaucer's " House of Fame," and in 
what? Repeat the lines from Pope, 
(note.) 

WILLIAM CAXTON. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
Why will his name ever be cherished ? 
Repeat the verses in his praise, (note.) 
Give the outline of his life. What is 
said of the history of printing? (note.) 
What two cities claim the honor of the 
discovery ? Who discovered the prin- 

* I cannot too strongly urge upon 
the young the advantage of commit- 
ting to memory the choicest passages 
in prose and poetry in English Lite- 
rature. What we learn thoroughly 
vs^hen young, remains by us through 
life. "Sir," said the great Doctor 
Johnson to Boswell, "in my early 
days I read very hard. It is a sad 
reflection, but a true one, that I knew 
almost as much at eighteen as I do 
now. My judgment, to be sure, was 
not so good ; but, I had all the facts. 
I remember very well when I was at 
Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, 
' Young man, ply your book diU- 
gently now, and acquire a stock of 
knowledge; for when years come unto 
you, you will find that poring upon 
books will be but an irksome task.' " 



ciple of the art ? Who invented move- 
able types? Who first founded types? 
State the conclusion, (note.) What 
was the first book ever printed in the 
English language, where, and when? 
What was the first book printed in 
England, and when? What is said of 
Caxton's character ? How many works 
did he print ? 

WILLIAM DUNE All. 

Date of birth and death ? What 
does Ellis say of him ? What are his 
chief poems ? What is the story of 
the <' Thistle and the Rose ?" Give 
an account of " The Dance." 

SIR THOMAS MORE. 

In whose reign did he flourish ? 
What is said of him ? What remark 
was made of him when a boy ? To 
what offices was he appointed ? Why 
did he incur the displeasure of Henry 
VIII.? How did he die ? What does 
Hume, the historian, say of his death ? 
What is said of More's genius and 
character ? What couplet is attributed 
to him ? What great inconsistencies 
did he display ? What is his most 
celebrated work? Why so called? 
(note.) What is its character ? What 
are some of the excellent principles in 
it ? What is the subject of the first 
chapter, and what curious customs are 
mentioned ? What of the second ? 
Of the third ? Of the fourth ? Of the 
fifth ? What other works of More are 
mentioned ? How often was More 
married ? What is said of his first 
wife? What of his second ? 

WILLIAM TYNDALE. 

Who gave us the first English Ver- 
sion of the Bible ? From what was the 
translation made ? When did Wiclif 
die ? What Convocation twenty-four 
years after ? What did it decree ? 
When was the Latin Vulgate first 
printed ? When the Hebrew ? When 
the Greek ? What did the Monks say 
of them ? What did one of the priests 
declare ? Date of Tyndale's birth 
and death ? In whose reigns did he 
flourish ? Where was he educated ? 
What is said of his scholarship ? 
What did a priest once say to him ? 
What was Tyndale's noble reply ? 
Where did Tyndale go in 1523 ? For 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 



689 



what purpose ? When did he finish 
his translation of the Testament ? 
What was the result ? How was his 
retreat at Antwerp discovered ? Wliat 
was done to him ? What efforts made 
to release him ? With what success ? 
How was he employed in prison ? 
What was finally done to him ? Give 
an account of his martyrdom and last 
prayer. Repeat the lines on his 
death. How was his prayer answer- 
ed ? What is said of his translation ? 

SIR THOMAS WYATT, 

Date of birth and death ? With 
whose name is his generally asso- 
ciated ? For what was he early dis- 
tinguished? What were his accom- 
plishments ? What were some of the 
traits of his character ? On what mis- 
sion was he sent ? What was the 
cause of his death ? What qualities 
did he unite in his character ? For 
what was he most distinguished ? 
How did he ennoble learning and 
poetry ? 

EARL OF SURREY. 

Date of birth and death ? In whose 
reigns did Surrey and Wyatt flourish ? 
When did he enter upon public life? 
What honor was conferred on him 
1542? What did he do 1544? What 
eff'ect had his popularity on Henry 
VIII.? Who was his chief malicious 
enemy? What was done to Surrey? 
Of what was he accused ? Who was 
the chief witness against him ? What 
was the result? When was he judi- 
cially murdered ? What is said of his 
character ? What is said of his en- 
dowments ? What of his moral vir- 
tues ? What of his regard for reli- 
gion ? Repeat the lines on " The 
Happy Life." 

HUGH LATIMER. 

Date of birth and death ? Where 
educated ? By whose means con- 
verted ? What is said of him during 
the reign of Edward VI. ? In the 
reign of Mary ? What did he refuse 
to do? What was the result ? Give 
an account of his and Ridley's mar- 
tyrdom. What did Latimer say to 
Ridley? What is said of his suff'er- 
ings ? What of Ridley's ? Meaning 
of" martyr"? (note.) 

44 



SIR JOHN CHEKE. 

Date of birth and death ? What 
professorship did he early fill ? To 
whom was he tutor ? Milton's lines ? 
(note.) What was the consequence of 
his Protestantism ? What choice was 
off'ered to him ? Which did he take ? 
What followed ? When did he die ? 
What is said of the period in which 
he flourished? What did he intro- 
duce in Greek ? How improve Eng- 
lish ? What is said of his works ? 
What is the title of the chief one ex- 
tant ? 

JOHN HEYWOOD. 

What is said of the age of Queen 
Elizabeth ? Repeat the remarks of 
Dr. Johnson respecting it : (note.) To 
what does the name of John Heywood 
introduce us ? How many divisions in 
the history of the Drama, and what are 
they ? When were the Miracle Plays 
in vogue ? Why called so ? What 
were some of their subjects ? By 
whom acted ? What is said of them ? 
What was the next division ? What 
were " Moral Plays ?" What is said 
of them ? What scriptural character 
in them ? What is said of the " In- 
terludes ?" What successful writer of 
them ? Date of his binh and death ? 
What of his genius ? What did he 
expose ? What is the name of one of 
his best Interludes ? What is it, and 
who were the characters ? How does 
the piece open ? What does the Par- 
doner say ? What the Palmer ? How 
does the Pardoner reply ? What says 
the Poticary ? What the Pedler ? 
What does the Pedler propose, to end 
the dispute ? Who begins ? Who 
gains the victory ? Repeat the lines. 
What exclamations follow ? 

ROGER ASCHAM. 

In whose reign did he flourish? 
Where educated ? To whom was he 
preceptor? What office did he fill? 
When did he die ? What are his two 
principal works ? What is the Toxo- 
philus ? What is its design ? Who 
are the speakers? What does Dr. 
Johnson remark of the work ? What 
influence had his work upon the lan- 
guage ? What was his other work? 
What does Johnson say of it ? What 



690 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 



does Ascham say of the influence of 
foreign travel ? 

SIK PHILIP SIDNEY. 

In whose reign did he flourish ? 
When did he enter Oxford ? When 
begin his travels ? What happened to 
him at Paris ? To vv'hat high post 
abroad was he elected ? Who was 
opposed to his accepting of it, and 
why ? What public service was he 
next engaged in ? Relate the par- 
ticulars of his death. What effect did 
it produce in England ? On what 
does his literary reputation rest ? 
How may he be regarded as a prose 
writer ? What does Cowper say of 
him ? (note,) and what does he say 
of" poetry ?" What is the Arcadia ? 
Where is the scene of it laid ? Who 
are the heroes of the romance ? What 
is their fortune? What is the other 
great work of Sidney ? What is said 
of it? What does Hallam say ? (note.) 

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. 

With whom was he cotemporary ? 
Date of birth and death? For what 
was he most known in his life ? For 
what now ? Repeat the extract. 

ROBERT SOUTHWELL. 

Date of birth and death ? Where 
educated ? To what order did he at- 
tach himself? Where did he go, and 
in what capacity ? What treatment 
did he meet with ? For what was he 
tried ? What was the result ? Was 
he probably guilty ? What is said of 
the whole transaction ? Did he do 
anything more than he had a right to 
do ? What is said of putting down 
opinions by force ? Repeat Whit- 
tier's lines. What is said of South- 
well's poetry ? [Commit " Times 
go by turns," and " Scorn not the 
Least."] 

EDMUND SPENSER. 

Date of birth and death ? In whose 
reign did he flourish ? What is said 
of his parentage ? What does Gibbon 
say ? How did he enter Cambridge ? 
What is a " sizer," and why so called ? 
What work did he first publish ? What 
is it? In what capacity did he go to 
Ireland ? What grant did he receive ? 
Where did he go to reside ? Who 



visited him there ? What did he sty] e 
him? What was he persuaded to do? 
What does Campbell say of Raleigh's 
visit to Spenser ? What is Spenser's 
great work? Of how many books does 
it consist? How many is it said he 
intended to write ? Did he probably 
finish his design ? What happened to 
him in Ireland ? Where did he die, 
and when ? What is said of the influ- 
ence of his works ? What have pre- 
vented the " Faerie Queene" from 
being generally read ? What is said 
of the allegory? What does Spenser 
say is the " end of all the book" ? 
Who is the hero? Who is intended 
by the " Faerie Queene" ? What does 
Prince Arthur represent ? The knight 
and virtue of the first book ? Of the 
second? Of the third? Of the fourth? 
Of the fifth? Of the sixth? [Commit 
— at pleasure.] What does Sir James 
Mackintosh say of Spenser ? What 
does Hazlitt ? What Campbell ? 

RICHARD HOOKER. 

Date of birth and death ? What is 
said of him ? Where educated ? What 
profession did he select? Where did 
he preach ? Did he love a city life ? 
What did he request ? Where did he 
die ? What is his great work called ? 
What its design? To what does it 
owe its origin ? What is said of its 
learning? Of its style? What does 
Hallam say of it? 

THE SOUL'S ERRAND. 

What does Campbell say of it ? To 
whom has it been ascribed ? With 
any probability ? Repeat it. 

ENGLISH MINSTRELSY. 

What is said of the minstrels? Where 
were their talents put in requisition ? 
What of their origin ? Derivation of 
the term? How long did they con- 
tinue a distinct order ? What did they 
sing and probably compose ? What 
incidents in history show that they 
were held in high estimation ? Give 
an account of their declining popu- 
larity ? What is one of the best old 
ballads ? What does Sidney say of 
it? Who has criticised it, and where ? 
Give the history of it. [Commit, at 
pleasure.] 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 



691 



TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE. 

What is said of our present version 
of the Bible ? What were the reasons 
why it was undertaken ? When was 
a conference held of the clergy of all 
denominations ? What did the king 
(James I.) do ? How many of those 
first commissioned to translate the 
Bible, died or resigned, before it was 
begun ? How many were left ? How 
divided ? How did they proceed in 
their task ? What cautions did they 
take to prevent errors ? When was 
the result published ? Under what 
title ? What is said of the translation 
as a whole ? What does Adam Clarke 
say ? What does strict truth require ? 
What is one of the greatest defects in 
the translation ? (note.) Give exam- 
ples. 

THOMAS SACKVILLE. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
Why does he deserve consideration ? 
Give an account of his tragedy ? By 
what poem is he best known ? What 
are its character and design ? What 
portion did he write of it ? Who 
finished it ? What is said of Sack- 
ville's powers as a poet ? 

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
Where born ? When ? What is said 
of his early life ? What prove him to 
have been a great student? Whom did 
he marry ? When did he remove to 
London ? What is his history there ? 
When did he retire to the country ? 
How long did he enjoy his retirement ? 
When did he die ? What is said of 
his children, and their descendants ? 
How has he written his own eulogy ? 
^Repeat the lines.) What does Ben 
Jonson say of him ? What Dryden? 
(Repeat the extract, most richly worth 
committing.) [Commit from the poet, 
at pleasure.] 

SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
What is said of him ? Where edu- 
cated ? How did he spend his time in 
France? What did he do in 1579? 
What was the result of the expedition ? 
What was granted him in 1584 ? What 
did he do? What in 1585? Result? 
What in 1594 ? What did he publish ? 



How treated by James ? What is said 
of the trial, and result? How did he 
employ his prison hours ? What did 
he do in 1615? Result? What of 
his death ? What is said of his cha- 
racter, and learning ? Dates of his 
history ? What does Hume say of it ? 
What Tytler ? What other wo"'rks did 
he write ? What does Headley say 
of him ? What is said of his poetry ? 
What does Spenser style him? [Com- 
mit "The Nymph's Reply."] 

SAMUEL DANIEL. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
What is his chief work ? What does 
Headley say of him ? [Commit the 
three last verses of Richard Second's 
Soliloquy.] 

GILES FLETCHER. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
What does Wood say of him ? What 
is his chief poem ? What does Camp- 
bell say of him ? • 

FRANCIS BACON. 

In whose reigns did he flourish? 
Whose son was he ? Where edu- 
cated ? How there distinguished ? 
What profession did he choose ? Did 
he confine his studies to it? What 
great work did he early plan ? What 
honor did he receive, 1603 ? What 
subsequent one ? What awaited him ? 
To what did he confess ? What were 
his words ? What was his punish- 
ment ? When did he die ? What is 
his first principal work ? What does 
Stewart say of it ? What the second 
mentioned ? Of what does it treat ? 
How does he divide human learning 1 
What the third ? What is its object ? 
What the fourth ? What rank has 
this work given him ? Difference be- 
tween Bacon and Aristotle ? What 
does he say of man ? What remarka- 
ble passage in his will ? What de- 
tracts greatly from his character ? 
What does Pope say of him ? [Com- 
mit, at pleasure.] 

BEN JONSON. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
Give an account of his life. Of what 
do his works consist ? How is he com- 
pared with Shakspeare ? How does 
old Fuller compare them ? What is 



692 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 



said of his lyrical pieces ? What of 
his prose ? [Commit, " Directions for 
writing well."] 

THOMAS CAREW, 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
What does Headley say of his poetry ? 
W^hat Campbell ? But on what sub- 
jects did he employ his talents? 

GEORGE SANDYS. 

In whose reign did he flourish ? 
Where educated ? When did he die ? 
His principal work ? 

WILLIAM CHILLINGWOETH. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
What is said of him ? Where did he 
study for some time ? What is his 
great work called ? What object had 
he in writing it ? What does Locke 
say of it ? What Gibbon ? 

rBANCIS QUARLES. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
Where educated? What profession 
did he study ? With what noble ob- 
ject? To whom did he become secre- 
tary ? Where did he die, and when ? 
What does Montgomery say of him ? 
What remarks upon his writings ? 
What does Headley say ? What are 
his chief poetical works ? What are 
his emblems ? [Commit, at pleasure. 
'•' The World,-' and " Hope in God," 
are recommended.] What is his prin- 
cipal prose work ? What does Head- 
ley say of it ? [Commit, at pleasure.] 

WILLIAM DRUMMOND. 

What is said of him ? What of the 
character of his poetry ? What of his 
sonnets? When did he die ? [Com- 
mit, " On Sleep," and the lines that 
Pope imitated, with Pope's imitation.] 

RICHARD CRASHAW. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
What is said of his character ? What 
are his poems called ? To what 
church did he attach himself? What 
do his poems display ? What of his 
attainments? What of his " Lines on 
a Prayer-book "? 

PHINEAS FLETCHER. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
Where did he study? What profes- 



! sion did he enter ? What is his chief 
poem called ? What is it ? What its 
character ? [Commit " The Shep- 
herd's Life," and, " Decay of Human 
Greatness."] 

JOSEPH HALL. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
What characters did he unite ? Of 
what profession ? What office did he 
hold ? In what protestation did he 
unite ? What was done to him in 
consequence ? What was his subse- 
quent history? At what age did he 
die ? How known as a poet? What 
does Warton say of his poems? What 
is their chief fault ? What was Pope's 
testimony concerning them ? [Com- 
mit, " The Client and Lawyer," and 
" Domestic Tutor."] What is said 
of him as a prose writer ? Which of 
his prose works are now most known ? 
What has he been styled? [Commit 
lines from Burns, and the quotation 
from Walton, (note.)] 

THOMAS FULLER. 

In whose reigns did he flourish? 
Where educated? Of what profes- 
sion? What of his promotions ? Give 
the outline of his life. What is the 
first of his works here mentioned ? 
What is its character ? What the se- 
cond ? What of it ? What the third ? 
The fourth ? The fifth ? What is 
said of his character? Of his learn- 
ing ? Of his memory ? [Commit, 
Aphorisms, at pleasure.] What does 
Gibbon say of the obligations of a 
scholar to his teacher ? (note.) What 
are Barton's six reasons for marriage ? 
(note.) How did Las Casas address 
Charles V. on slavery ? (note.) What 
duty does Bacon enjoin upon every 
man ? (note.) 

ROBERT HERRICK. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
What is said of him as a poet ? What 
profession did he enter ? What does 
the Retrospective Review say of him 
as a poet? [Commit " To Daff"odil," 
" To Primroses," " To Blossoms," 
&c.] 

JEREMY TAYLOR. 

What is said of him ? In whose 
reigns did he flourish ? Where edu- 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 



693 



cated ? To whom did he become 
chap] am ? What happened to him 
1644 ? Where did he establish a 
school ? What does he say of his re- 
tirement ? What affliction did he 
meet with ? What honor did he re- 
ceive at the Restoration ? When did 
he die ? What is said of his writings ? 
What is his greatest work ? What is 
its object ? How has it been described? 
What is his most popular work ? What 
does an eminent critic say of him ? 
[Commit " On Prayer," " On Con- 
tent," and Thomson's lines, in note.] 

ABKAHAM COWLEY. 

What is said of him ? In whose 
reigns did he flourish ? For what was 
he distinguished in college ? What 
early gave him a taste for poetry ? 
To what cause did he attach himself? 
What is said of him at the Restoration ? 
How was he esteemed at his death ? 
How are his poetical works divided ? 
What does Dr. Johnson say of him as 
a poet ? What is said of his prose 
compared with his poetry ? What is 
the criticism""of Dr. Johnson ? Of Dr. 
Drake ? 

JOHN MILTON. 

How does Milton rank among Eng- 
lish poets ? In whose reigns did he 
flourish ? When born ? Where did 
he imbibe his principles of liberty ? 
In what was he early instructed? 
What influence had it on him ? Where 
educated ? Where did he go after 
leaving the university ? For how long ? 
How employed ? What remark did 
he make ? Which of his minor poems 
did he write while in the University ? 
Which at his father's ? When did he 
go to Italy ? How did he rank ? 
Whom did he visit? What did he do 
on his return home ? In what contro- 
versy engage? How did he sustain 
himself in it ? Whom did he marry ? 
What is said of the connection ? To 
what ofilce appointed in 1649 ? For 
how long had his eyesight been failing 
him ? AVhat cause ? When and in 
what labor did it entirely fail ? 
What did he say of it? (note 4, page 
215.) What is said of him at the re- 
storation ? To what did he devote 
himself? When was the Paradise 
Lost published ? What did Tie receive 



for it ? When Paradise Regained ? 
What is his first poetical work, and 
what is its subject ? What the second ? 
Third ? Fourth ? Fifth ? Sixth ? 
Seventh? Eighth? Ninth? Tenth? 
What is the fable of Comus ? (note.) 
What is said of the nightingale ? 
(note, p. 214. Commit Walton's de- 
scription.) [Commit " Invocation to 
Light," " Description of Satan," 
" Evening in Paradise," <' Hymn on 
the Nativity."] What is said of the 
prose works of Milton ? Of what 
character ? To what owing ? What 
does Burnet say of them ? What 
Brydges? What did Milton publish 
in 1642 ? What remarkable senti- 
ment in it ? 



SIR MATTHEW HALE. 

What is said of Hale ? In whose 
reign did he flourish ? What profes- 
sion did he enter ? What course did 
he take in the civil war ? Was it 
right? Who first appointed him judge? 
Who next ? How did he discharge 
his duties ? What honor 1671 ? What 
exception to his judicial reputation ? 
What is said of it ? Who were with 
him in opinion ? (see note.) What 
did he write ? What is best known ? 
[Commit Lord Erskine's Eulogy, and 
Cowper's lines.] 

ISAAC BARROW. 

What is said of him ? In whose 
reign did he flourish ? What profes- 
sion did he first study ? Why? To 
what professorship elected in 1660? 
In 1662 ? In 1663 ? To whom did 
he resign the last ? Why ? What 
honor 1672? When did he die ? What 
of his mind and character ? What did 
Charles II. call him ? What of his 
sermons ? What noble moral senti- 
ment recorded ? 

ANDREW MARVELL. 

Why does Marvell deserve espe- 
cially to be remembered ? What is 
said of his character ? In what office 
did he assist Milton ? What of their 
relations? How honored in l660 ? 
How did he discharge his duties ? How- 
vote ? Give the anecdote of the at- 
tempt to bribe him. To whom did he 
become obnoxious ? How threatened ? 
How aff'ected by it ? What is said of 



694 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 



his prose writings ? What of the 
friendship between him and Milton ? 
How did he defend Milton ? What 
of his poetry ? [Commit " The Emi- 
grants.-'] 

SAMUEL BUTLER. 

Of what is Butler the author ? In 
whose reigns did he flourish ? How 
was his early life employed ? When 
did he first conceive the idea of his 
poem ? When was the first part pub- 
lished ? When the second ? When 
the third ? When did he die ? In what 
circumstances ? What is said of Hu- 
dibras ? By what suggested ? What 
was its object ? What is said of his 
poem ? [Commit first paragraph of 
Macaulay's remarks on the Puritans, 
note.] What is said of Butler's 
prose ? 

SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
What profession did he follow ? What 
are his principal productions ? What 
is said of the Religio Medici P What 
of his Pseudodoxia Epidemica ? What 
ofHydriotaphiaP How does Dr. John- 
son describe his style ? Repeat a 
portion of the Soliloquies of the 
Philosopher and Young Lady. 

IZAAK WALTON. 

What is he called ? In whose reigns 
did he flourish ? At what age did he 
die? For what celebrated? Whose 
lives has he written ? Who especially 
valued them ? By what is Walton 
most known ? What is the character 
of the work ? In what form ? Who 
are the pai-ties introduced ? Repeat 
the exhortation to contentment. 

EDMUND WALLER. 

What is said of him as a man and a 
poet? In whose reigns did he flou- 
rish ? What is said of him in politi- 
cal life ? How punished ? Whither 
did he go after his release ? What at 
the Restoration ? What does Burnet 
say of his conduct in Parliament ? 
What are his characteristics as a poet ? 
What does Hallam say ? [Commit 
'' The Rose."] 



JOHN BUNYAN. 

Repeat the lines of Cowper. 



In 



whose reigns did Bunyan flourish ? 
What of his parents? Of his educa- 
tion ? What does he say of his early 
marriage? What influence on him? 
What incident made a deep impres- 
sion on his mind ? When did he join 
the Baptist church ? What office did 
he fill ? What awaited him ? What 
was done to him ? How long confined 
in Bedford jail ? What were the fruits 
of this imprisonment ? Give his own 
account of his incarceration. What 
books had he with him in prison ? 
Repeat the lines of Cowper. What 
did he do when released from prison ? 
What did Dr. Owen say of his preach- 
ing ? What were some of his works, 
and their subject ? What his great 
work ? What its subject ? What does 
Southey say of it ? What great poets 
have united to extol it ? [Repeat Ma- 
caulay's remarks.] 

ROBERT BARCLAY. 

Where born, and when ? Whither 
did he go after leaving school ? What 
is said of his position there ? What 
off"ers did his uncle make, and on 
what conditions ? Why did he de- 
cline them ? Was his filial duty re- 
warded? How? How have the 
" Friends" been distinguished as a 
sect ? What of practical religion ? 
(note.) To what sect did Barclay be- 
come a convert? What is his great 
work ? What is said of it ? What 
else did he write ? How were the 
latter years of his life spent? What 
is said of his character ? What of his 
dedication to Charles II. 

SIR ROBERT BOYLE. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
Where educated ? Give the anecdote 
relative to his study of mathematics. 
What places on the continent did he 
visit ? What change in his circum- 
stances ? How did he devote the rest 
of his life ? Of what was he one of the 
first members ? How did he employ 
his time ? How like Newton ? What 
of his writings ? Name some of them. 
What has he been styled ? What does 
Mr. Hughes say of him ? What Bur- 
net ? 

RICHARD BAXTER. 

What is said of Baxter ? Meaning 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 



695 



of non-conformist ? When did he 
flourish ? What of his early educa- 
tion ? Where did he preach ? What 
side did he take in the civil war ? For 
what arrested ? By whom ? What ot 
the character of Jeffries ? Result of 
his trial ? What of him as a writer ? 
What are his two chief works ? What 
of them? Why? What work did he 
leave behind him ? With whom was 
it a favorite ? What does Dr. Barrow 
say of him ? (note.) 

JOHN TILLOTSOiSr. 

In whose reign did Tillotson flourish ? 
How educated ? What course did he 
take at the Restoration ? What did 
he get for it at first ? What after- 
wards ? What are his principal com- 
positions ? What is said of them? 
What does Hallam say ? (note.) What 
Blair ? 

SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 

What was he ? Where educated ? 
Where did he travel ? How live during 
the "Commonwealth" ? What honor 
did Charles II. bestow upon him ? 
What political measure did he arrange 
and, complete ? How did the arbitrary 
conduct of Charles II. aff'ect him ? 
To what post did James invite him ? 
When did he die ? What of his 
works ? Name them. To what did his 
Essay on ancient and modern learning 
give rise ? What position did he main- 
tain ? What work did he adduce to 
support it? Who was Phalaris ? 
(note.) Who came out against him ? 
What then appeared ? What followed ? 
What is said of Bentley ? Who were 
the parties to this controversy ? Who 
used the weapon of ridicule ? In what 
work ? What is said of this contro- 
versy ? (note.) What does Blair say 
of Temple's style ? 

JOHN- DRYDEN. 

Where born? In whose reigns did 
he flourish ? What first poem that 
attracted attention ? How did he 
change sides ? To what did he betake 
himself? How did he write?. What 
occurred in 1668? Meaning of "Lau- 
reate" ? (note.) Who were his prin- 
cipal enemies ? In what did they 
ridicule him ? In what did he reply ? 
What course did he take after the ac- 



cession of James ? What djd he write 
in defence of the Papal church? What 
in 16S9 ? Consequence? How did he 
devote the latter part of his life? 
What is his best piece ? When did he 
die ? What is said of his character ? 
Whapof him as a poet ? How does 
he compare with Pope ? What lesson 
to be learned from Dryden's life and 
writings? What is said of his prose? 
What does Drake say? What John- 
son of his account of Shakspeare ? 
What compliment to Dryden recorded 
by Malone? (note.) 

JOHN LOCKE. 

What was he ? In whose reigns did 
he flourish ? What profession did he 
first choose? Why leave it? What 
official station did he hold ? With 
whom reside ? What constitution did 
he draw up? What were its provi- 
sions ? (note.) Where did he go for 
his health ? With whose fortune was 
his own united ? What occurred in 
16SS ? Where did he pass the rest of 
his life ? What is the great work of 
Locke? What are its principles? 
What his second work mentioned ? 
Object? What third? Fourth? What 
position does it maintain ? Fifth ? 
Sixth? Seventh? Eighth? What 
other useful book ? What does Drake 
say of his style ? What is said of his 
personal character ? 

ROBERT SOUTH. 

For what celebrated ? What side 
did he take in church and state ? What 
does he maintain in one of his ser- 
mons ? What proves him wrong ? 
How was he rewarded? What is 
said of his sermons ? 

THOMAS PARNELL. 

Where born ? In whose reigns did 
he flourish ? What profession did he 
choose? What party in politics? 
What success did he meet with ? 
What does Campbell say of his poetry ? 
What is the poem by which he is best 
known? What is said of it ? What 
is the story taken from ? Give the 
substance of it ? (note.) [Commit 
" Hymn to Contentment."] 

WILLIAM PENN. 

What is said of him ? How renown- 



696 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 



ed ? Whose son? In whose reigns 
did he flourish? Where educated? 
What early change in religious views ? 
How treated by his father? When 
did he begin to preach ? How treated ? 
What is his most popular work ? For 
what was he tried ? What is the most 
important period of his life ? Where 
was territory granted to him ? Why ? 
When did he sail from England ? In : 
what ship ? When arrive at Newcas- ' 
tie? Where then did he go with the 
colonists ? What were his reasons for 
coming to America ? When did he ■ 
return to England ? What did he 
there accomplish ? When did he re- ' 
embark for this country ? How long 
did he remain ? Why so short a time ? 
When did he die ? Of what works was 
he the author ? 

JOSEPH ADDISON. 

What is said of Addison ? Where 
educated ? In whose reigns did he i 
flourish ? How did he first attract no- ' 
tice ? What pension did he obtain ? 
Where did he travel ? What com- 
pose there ? What did he publish on 
his return? What deprived him of. 
his pension ? What poem did he ' 
write? What does Warton call it? 
(note.) What ballad superior on the 
same subject? When did the Tatler : 
first appear ? How did Addison re- 
cognize Steele's hand in it? What 
paper did Addison project ? What is 
said of it ? When did it commence ? 
(note.) AVhat is its plan ? Who were . 
the contributors ? How are Addison's 
papers designated ? What followed 
the Spectator ? When commenced ? 
Whom did Addison marry ? What is 
said of her, and of the connection? 
What is said of Addison's death ? Re- '■ 
late the account of it ? When did he ; 
die ? What does Melmoth say of him as '. 
a writer ? What Young ? What John- 
son ? What are the four departments ' 
in literature in which he excels ? What 
is said of him as a critic ? What cri- 
tical papers are mentioned ? What of 
his humor ? [Commit what he says 
of Shakspeare. Also the " Hj'mn" on ■ 
page 355. Also"Cato."] '. 

I 

MATTHEW PRIOR. j 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? i 



Where educated ? Where go, and in 
what capacity ? When did he die ? 
What does Campbell say of him ? 

LADY RACHEL RUSSELL. 

Whose wife ? What of the fate of 
her husband ? How did she aid him ? 
What does Burnet say of her letters, 
and of her conjugal devotion ? 

SIR RICHARD STEELE. 

Where born ? When ? Where edu- 
cated ? What profession did he first 
choose? What were the consequences? 
In what department of literature did 
he first exert himself? What periodi- 
cal paper did he project ? When pub- 
lished ? What appellation does he 
deserve ? When did he begin the 
Spectator with Addison ? What title 
did he receive ? To what post of 
honor elected ? Why continue so 
poor ? What was one of his projects ? 
What is said of his style ? How com- 
pare with Addison ? How with Til- 
lotson. Temple, and Dryden ? [Com- 
mit Shakspeare's Description of Dover 
CI iff .j 

DANIEL DE rOE. 

How known ? When born and 
where? What of his education ? In 
what did he first engage ? What did 
he first publish ? What periodical pa- 
per ? When? Upon what new field 
did he afterwards enter ? What is 
said of his best known work ? What 
else did he publish ? What curious 
title of one work ? What is said of 
him as a writer ? What peculiar power 
had he ? What does Dr. Johnson say 
of Robinson Crusoe ? 

JOHIf GAY. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
What was his early employment ? 
Why abandoned ? What his first 
work ? Of what benefit was it to him ? 
What post did he obtain in 1712 ? 
What work did he soon after publish ? 
What does Drake say of it? What 
other department in literature did he 
enter ? What successful drama did 
he write ? By what is he now known ? 
What is said"of his Fables ? What of 
his character ? What are the lines of 
Pope ? 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 



69^ 



BARTON BOOTH. 

What is said of him ? Why deserve 
a notice here ? 

HENRY GROVE. 

What was he ? When born? What 
is said of him in his youth ? What 
profession did he enter ? What post 
did he afterwards occupy ? What 
work publish ? Its design ? His next 
writings ? What other treatises ? 
What is said of his religious opinions ? 
When did he die ? 

THOMAS TICKELL. 

When and where born ? Where 
educated ? Who was his most inti- 
mate friend ? How did Addison feel 
towards him ? What poem did he 
publish ? What is said of it? What 
office did he fill ? What charge did 
Addison leave with him ? What does 
Drake say of his Elegy ? What other 
pieces ? When did he die ? 

RICHARD BENTLEY. 

What is said of him ? Where edu- 
cated ? To what appointed in 1692 ? 
In what controversy did he engage ? 
Who were against him ? How did he 
acquit himself in it? What is said of 
most of his works ? What v/as his re- 
putation as a scholar ? In what did 
he fail? Give the example quoted. 
When did he die ? 

WILLIAM SOMERVILLE. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
Where educated ? Where did he set- 
tle ? How did he employ his time? 
Character ? What does Shenstone 
say of him ? When did he die ? By 
what is he best known ? What is said 
of it ? What else did he write ? [Com- 
mit lines on Addison.] 

JONATHAN SWIFT. 

Where born? Where educated? 
With whom did he early reside ? 
What did he there write ? Who in- 
vited him to Ireland ? Where did he 
settle there ? Relate the anecdote. | 
(note.) What did he publish in 1704 ? j 
What is its design ? What its charac- i 
ter ? How rewarded in 1713 ? What | 
destroyed his hopes of farther prefer- j 
raent ? How, for many years, did he ; 
employ himself? State the difference ' 



between the English Whigs and 
Tories ? (note.) What made him very 
popular with the Irish in 1724 ? Give 
the account in full ? What was the 
result? What did he publish in 1724? 
What is said of it ? Its design ? What 
were some of his other publications ? 
Give the account of the end of his life. 
What is said of him as a writer? 
What does Dr. Blair say ? 

ALEXANDER POPE. 

When born ? What of his early 
life ? What of his poetic taste ? What 
instance of precocity ? When did 
he write his pastorals ? When his 
Messiah ? What is the Messiah ? 
On what founded ? Who was Pol- 
lio ? (note.) What does Roscoe 
say of it ? When did he finish his 
Essay on Criticism ? What does 
Johnson say of it ? What Warton ? 
(note.) What did he publish in 1712 ? 
What kind of a poem is it? What is 
its subject? (note.) What does War- 
ton say ? What else did he publish 
successively ? For what, at the age of 
twenty-five, did he issue proposals ? 
What of its success ? What followed 
such fame ? How did he retaliate ? 
Was it wise thus to do ? What did he 
publish in 1733 ? How assailed ? Who 
has vindicated it ? What did he pro- 
ject ? What is his rank as a poet ? 
[Commit the "Messiah."] 

ROBERT BLAIR. 

Where born ? What profession did 
he enter ? What is his chief work ? 
What is said of it ? [Commit, at plea- 
sure.] 

JAMES TH03IS0N. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
Where educated ? What incident 
turned his attention to poetry ? When 
did he publish his " Winter" ? When 
the other Seasons ? What is his no- 
blest eff'ort ? What does Campbell 
say of it ? When did he die ? What 
rank does he hold as a descriptive 
poet ? What does Campbell remark ? 
What is his greatest charm ? [Com- 
mit the stanzas from " Castle of Indo- 
lence" — the "Various Sufferings in 
Winter" — and "Hymn on the Sea- 
sons."] 



698 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 



ISAAC WATTS. 

When born, and where ? Where 
educated ? Where afterwards reside 
as private tutor ? To what situation 
was he called in 1698? How afflict- 
ed ? What valued friend received 
him to his house ? How long did he 
remain there ? What does Dr. John- 
son say of it ? (note.) When did he 
die? How to be considered in his 
literary character ? What is said of 
him as a poet? What of his Psalms 
and Hymns ? What as a philosopher ? 
What were his works in this depart- 
ment ? W!iat does Dr. Johnson say 
of his " Improvement of the Mind'- ? 
What of him as a theologian ? What 
did he remark of the Bible ? (note.) 
What does Dr. Johnson say of him as 
a poet ? (note.) What is Dr. Drake's 
criticism? [Commit "Summer Eve- 
ning" — " The Rose" — " Looking Up- 
ward" — " Seeking a Divine Calm," 
&c.] 

CONYERS MIDDLETON. 

For what celebrated ? When born ? 
What was his first publication ? What 
does Dr. Monk say of it ? What did 
he publish in 1729 ? Its object ? What 
is his great work ? When did it ap- 
pear ? What might it be called ? What 
of its style ? What did he publish in 
1749? When did he die? [Commit 
" Character of Pompey."] 

LORD BOLINGBROKE. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
Where educated? What political side I 
did he espouse ? Whither did he go? j 
What was done respecting him in his | 
absence ? In whose cause did he en- , 
list ? What occurred in 1723 ? What j 
in 1735 ? What did he there write ? j 
When did he return to England ? i 
When die? To whom did he be- j 
queath his manuscripts? What did i 
they contain? What was Johnson's! 
remark ? Give the account and cause ! 
of Bolingbroke's maligning Pope. | 
(note.) What is said of his charac- 
ter? Of his style? 

PHILIP DODDRIDGE. 

What is said of his influence ? I 
Where and when born ? What of his 
education? Where did he settle as a ! 
clergyman and schoolmaster ? For ! 



how long ? What is said of his la- 
bors ? Where did he go for his health ? 
With what result? What of his writ- 
ings ? What is his best known work ? 
What is said of it ? With what other 
great and good men does he rank ? 
What are some of his other works ? 
What popular biographical work did 
he write ? Who was Colonel Gardi- 
ner ? Give the account of his con- 
version, (note.) Is the military com- 
patible with the Christian profession ? 
What is Doddridge's most elaborate 
work ? For what else are we indebt- 
ed to Doddridge ? [Repeat the epi- 
gram.] 

JOSEPH BUTLER. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
What profession did he design to en- 
ter ? What did he early publish ? 
What change in his views ? What 
appointment did he receive in 1718? 
What did he publish in 1736 ? What 
is its object ? What of its execution ? 
What is said of the work ? When did 
he die ? What is said of his charac- 
ter ? Of his benevolence ? What was 
his remark when made Bishop of Dur- 
ham ? [Repeat Bishop Wilson's ad- 
mirable remarks on the ''Analogy."] 

GEORGE BERKELEY. 

Where and when born? Where 
educated? What did he publish in 
1709 ? Its object ? What in the year 
following ? What does it attempt to 
prove ? What influence had it ? Where 
did he travel ? What time spend there ? 
What did he publish on his return ? 
Give an account of the South Sea 
scheme, (note.) What object had he 
long had in view ? What did he do 
to efiect it ? Repeat the verses in 
connection with it. When did he sail 
from England ? Where reside ? What 
was the result of his plan ? What 
publish in 1732? What in 1744? 
What is said of it? Where did he 
reside the latter part of his life ? Give 
the account of his death. What of 
his character? What is the line of. 
Pope, applied to him ? 

WILLIAM COLLINS. 

When born ? In whose reigns 
flourish ? What does Johnson say of 
him ? When were his odes published ? 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 



699 



How received at first ? How was he 
relieved from pecuniary embarrass- 
ment ? What does Campbell say of 
his poetry ? What Drake ? (note.) 
What Hazlitt? [Commit "Ode to 
Fear"— "The Passions" — "Ode to 
Mercy."] 

SAMUEL RICHARDSON. 

What is said of him ? When did he 
flourish ! What of his boyhood ? At 
what trade was he put? How did he 
rise ? What situation did he obtain ? 
What did he first publish ? What was 
his first novel ? How received? What 
his second ? What is said of it ? 
What does Dr. Drake say ? What 
was his third ? Its object ? When 
did he die ? What of his character ? 
Why not now much read ? What 
work published in 1755 ? 

THOMAS SHERLOCK. 

Where born ? In whose reigns did 
he flourish ? Where educated ? In 
what did he distinguish himself? 
What promotions did he receive ? 
When did he die ? What is said of 
his sermons ? His style ? 

JOHN BYROM. 

When born ? What of his early 
scholarship ? What situation did he 
first fill? Who is the "Phoebe" of 
his pastoral ? Where did he go, after 
his marriage ? What do ? What 
change in his circumstances ? What 
is his best piece ? What else did he 
write ? What of his " Three Black 
Crows ?" [Commit the latter.] 

WILLIAM KING. 

When did he flourish ? What was 
his reputation ? By v.hat now most 
known ? 

•WILLIAM SHENSTONE. 

When born ? For what early dis- 
tinguished ? How has he celebrated 
his first teacher ? Where educated ? 
What publish ? Where did he go to 
reside, in 1745 ? What is said of it ? 
When did he die ? What does Camp- 
bell say of him as a writer ? 

ROBERT DODSLEY. 

When born ? What of his early 
life ? What was his first publication ? 



What his next? What its success? 
What business did he enter into ? 
What position did he take in it ? 
When die ? What were his writings ? 
For what more now known ? What 
did he do for Dr. Johnson ? 

EDWARD YOUNG. 

In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
Where educated ? What anecdote 
told of him in College ? Whattragedy 
did he publish? What of it ? What 
did he publish in 1725 ? What is said 
of them ? What was Goldsmith's criti- 
cism ? What profession did he enter ? 
Whom did he marry ? Who are intend- 
ed in the "Philander" and "Narcissa" 
of the Night Thoughts ? What lines 
refer to Mrs. Temple's death ? (note.) 
When were the Night Thoughts pub- 
lished? What is said of them? What 
does Johnson say ? What compliment 
did Warton pay him ? What did he 
publish in 1762 ? When die ? What 
is said of him? What does Dr. War- 
ton say ? What of him as a poet ? 
What of the influence of Night 
Thoughts? [Commit, at pleasure.] 

WILLIAM FALCONER. 

When born ? What of his early 
life ? What his employment ? On 
what does his fame rest ? What else 
did he publish ? What of his death ? 
What of the " Shipwreck ?" 

MARK AKENSIDE. 

What of his rank as a poet ? When 
born? Where? For what designed'? 
What profession did he choose ? 
Where go ? What did he publish ? 
What anecdote relating to the copy- 
right ? What of its success ? What 
did he subsequently do ? With what 
success? When die ? Wliat is said 
of the "Pleasures of the Imagina- 
tion" ? What is its object? How 
executed ? What does Johnson say 
of it ? What is said of his " revised" 
edition ? [Commit on " Taste," &c.] 

THOMAS GRAY. 

When born and where ? Where 
educated ? Where and with whom 
did he travel ? Result ? Whose fault? 
Where did he retire for study ? What 
was his first production ? What next ? 
What in 1750 ? What of its success ? 



700 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 



What office was tendered to him ? 
What did he publish the same year ? 
What professorship was he called to in 
1768? How discharge its duties? 
When did he die ? What of his life ? 
Of his learning ? Extent of his attain- 
ments ? What rank as a poet ? What 
does Mr. Matthias say of him ? What 
of him as a man ? What anecdote ? 
[Commit the " Elegy," and the " Pro- 
gress of Poesy."] 

JOfIN HAWKESWORTH. 

What is said of his early life ? His 
first literary effort ? What did he pro- 
ject in 1752 ? How qualified ? What 
success did it meet with ? What does 
Drake say of him? What did he next 
do? What office in 1765? How did 
he fill it ? Whose works did he pub- 
lish ? With what entrusted by govern- 
ment ? How executed ? Why cen- 
sured ? When did he die ? What of 
his character ? — [Commit hymn.] 

OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

How distinguished ? When born ? 
Where? Where educated ? College 
habits? To what in part owing? 
What did his uncle intend for him ? 
What anecdote of his habits ? Where 
did he go in 1752 ? For what purpose ? 
How long remain ? Why leave ? I 
Where did he go then ? How long I 
remain? Where travel, and how?! 
What lines in the Traveller alluding! 
thereto? What was his first literary 
engagement ? What did he first pub- 
lish ? What next? What did he pub- 
lish in 1760 ? What were they? (note.) 
What in 1766 ? What is said of it ? 
What does Walter Scott say ? (note.) 
E-epeat the anecdote relating to its 
composition, (note.) What did he 
publish in 1764 ? What did Johnson 
say of it? What in 1765 ? What in 
1768 ? What two years after ? What 
was the criticism of Johnson ? What 
was one of his last publications ? 
When did he die ? What effect of his 
death on his friends ? What of his 
merits as a writer ? What does Sir 
Walter Scott say ? What impression 
does Boswell's Johnson give of him ? 
(give the account in the note in full.) 
What anecdote connected with the 
lines in the Traveller, " By sports," 
&c. ? (note on p. 655.) What does 



Campbell say of two lines on p. 557 ? 
What Johnson ? What of his prose ? 
What did Johnson say ? (note, p. 560.) 
— [Commit, at pleasure.] 

DAVID HUME. 

For what celebrated ? When and 
where born ? What of his early em- 
ployment ? Did it agree with his taste ? 
Where did he go for retirement to 
study? What did he first publish? 
How received? What next? For 
what is he now most known ? When 
did he publish his History of England ? 
What while it was in progress ? When 
did he die ? How viewed as an au- 
thor ? What of his history? What 
of hira as a philosopher ? What of his 
death bed ? What did Johnson say of 
him? 

SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE. 

When born ? What of his educa- 
tion ? What profession did he enter ? 
What write? What success in his 
profession ? Where go ? What pub- 
lish in 1765? Influence? What of- 
fice did he hold ? When die ? 

SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

What styled ? Why so ? Where 
born ? When ? What often termed ? 
In whose reigns did he flourish ? 
Where educated ? What of his early 
indications ? Why did he not remain 
the usual time at the University? 
What employment did he first seek ? 
How unqualified for it ? What next ? 
What subsidiary assistance did he re- 
ceive ? What new project? Its suc- 
cess ? Where did he go ? What first 
publish? What did Pope say of it? 
What of his Irene ? What his situa- 
tion at this time ? What publish in 
1744 ? How received ? What proof 
of its merit ? (note.) What did he 
issue in 1747? What in 1749 ? When 
did he publish the Rambler ? What 
of it ? AVhen did his Dictionary ap- 
pear? How long in completing it? 
Anecdote of Chesterfield ? [Commit 
Lines of Garrick, and Letter to Ches- 
terfield.] What did he next publish ? 
Why not qualified for editing Shak- 
speare? What in 1759? Why? 
What receive in 1762 ? When intro- 
duced to Boswell ? Results ? Where 
did he go in 1777 ? What his opinion 
of Ossian's Poems ? What was his 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 



701 



last labor? What is said of it ? What 
incidents in his life, in 1781 and 1782 ? 
Give the account of his approaching 
dissolution? When die? His cha- 
racteristics ? What of his conversa- 
tion ? What other qualities and pe- 
culiarities? What of him as a Christian? 
Anecdote of the Earl of Eglintoune? 
Remark of Goldsmith? (note.) [Com- 
mit, at pleasure,] 

ROBERT LOWTH, 

In w^hose reign did he flourish ? 
Where educated ? What position in 
the English church did he hold ? 
When die ? What did he write ? 
What of his Lectures on Hebrew Po- 
etry ? Remark of Gibbon? (note.) Re- 
marks of Leigh Hunt, on the Utility 
of Poetry ? (note.) 

THOMAS WARTON- 

For what celebrated ? What of his 
family ? When born ? Where edu- 
cated ? What did he first publish ? To 
what professorship elected ? What 
did he publish in 1774 ? What is said 
of it ? [Commit " The Hamlet."] 

WILLIAM ROBERTSON. 

How celebrated ? When and where 
born ? What of his early attainments ? 
What profession did he enter ? What 
did he first publish? VvT'hat next? 
The merits of these works ? Of what 
does the introduction of" Charles V." 
consist? What did he publish in 
1777? When did he die? To what 
do most of his works relate ? What 
of his style 2 What does Gibbon say 
of Robertson and Hume ? (note.) 

EDWARD GIBBON. 

When born ? What does he say of 
his lot ? What of his education ? Of 
the death of his mother ? Of his first 
love ? Of the publication of his his- 
tory ? Where did he go for medita- 
tion and study ? What of the comple- 
tion of his history ? What is said of 
his attack on Christianity ? (note.) 
What is necessary for Christianity to 
fulfil its design ? Who alone of Gib- 
bon's correspondents rebuked him ? 
Did Dr. Robertson ? Was this honest? 

SIR WILLIAM JONES. 

What is said of him ? When born ? 



What of his early education ? What 
does Campbell say ? What of his 
studies at school ? , To what university 
did he go ? What did he do on leav- 
ing the university ? What profession 
did he embrace ? What was his 
course during our Revolutionary war ? 
How did it aff'ect his prospects ? To 
what was he appointed in 1 782 ? When 
did he commence his duties? What 
were someof his literary labors? What 
eff"ect did they have on his health ? 
When did he die ? What does Camp- 
bell say of his acquirements ? How 
does his biographer say he always 
seemed to act ? What were his habits 
of study in India ? What couplets re- 
lative to division of time ? [Re- 
peat " Remarks on the Bible," and the 
"Ode." 

ROBERT BURNS. 

When born ? Where ? What of 
his early education? What was the 
foundation of it ? For what did he 
early show a fondness? What were 
the earliest pieces he loved ? (note.) 
What fame did he early acquire ? To 
what did it introduce him ? Conse- 
quences ? Where did he resolve to 
go ? What prevented him ? Result ? 
What did an edition of his poems 
yield him ? How expend it ? Result ? 
His habits? When did he die ? What 
does Professor Wilson say of him ? 

EDMUND BURKE. 

When born, and where? Where 
educated ? What profession did he 
study? To what did he devote him- 
self? His first publication ? What 
is said of it? What the next year? 
What rank did it give him ? Its ob- 
ject ? What work did he suggest to 
Dodsley ? How honored in 1765 ? 
In what great causes did he employ 
his talents and learning ? What are 
some of his writings ? What calamity 
in 1794 ? When did he die ? What 
is said of his character ? What does 
a writer in the Edinburgh Review say ? 
[Repeat " Comparison between Burke 
and Johnson," " Character of Junius," 
" Speech to the Electors of Bristol," 
"The Queen of France."] 

LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 

What was the state of England when 



702 



EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 



these letters appeared ? What seemed 
to be the principles of George III.? 
Who resigned from the ministry in 
1771 ? Who formed a new ministry ? 
What was the next change ? What 
editor of a paper now appeared promi- 
nent ? To what post was he elected ? 
What followed ? What other ad- 
ministrations soon followed ? What 
motion was made in the House of 
Lords in 1770 ? What arguments in 
support of the motion ? What letters 
at this time appeared ? In what 
printed ? By whom ? What interest 
did they excite ? Why ? What of 
the style of Junius ? What power 
peculiarly his own ? Can his style be 
proposed as a model ? Why not ? 
What is said of the authorship of these 
Letters ? (note, page 654.) 

WILLIAM COWPER. 

What does Southey term him ? 
When born ? What of his infancy ? 
Of his mother ? To what school was 
he sent ? Why was he disgusted with 
it? What profession did he study? 
To what office was he chosen ? Did 
he accept it? What effect had the 



offer upon his mind ? Where did he 
go in 1765 ? To what family intro- 
duced ? Where afterwards go ? What 
happened to him in 1773 ? What did 
he publish in 1782 ? What visitor did 
he receive the same year ? What in- 
fluence had she on him ? What did 
she suggest to him to write ? How 
did Mrs. Unwin feel towards her ? 
Result ? When was the Task pub- 
lished ? What does Hazlitt say of it ? 
What else did he publish the same 
year ? What other friend visited him 
at Olney ? When did Hayley visit 
him ? What happened to Mrs. Unwin ? 
What poem did he address to her ? 
What happened to him in 1794 ? 
When did Mrs. Unwin die ? How 
was Cowper affected ? What was the 
last piece he ever wrote? When did 
he die? What may he eminently be 
called ? What does Campbell say of 
him? What of Geology? (note, p. 
670.) What does Campbell say of 
Cowper's writings against slavery ? 
What are the happy effects of emanci- 
pation in the West Indies? (note, p. 
672.) [Commit, at pleasure.] 



THE END, 



E. C. ^ J. BISDLE'S 

SCHOOL PUBIICATIONS, 



THE UNITED STATES ARITHMETIC. 

THE UNITED STATES ARITHMETIC; designed for Acade- 
mies and Schools. By William Vogdes, Professor of Matheraatics in the Central 
High School of Philadelphia. 

The first 104 pages of the above-named work, embracing the rules to Compound 
Division inclusive, with 16 pages of miscellaneous exercises additional, are pub- 
lished as a First Part — designed for the use of Secondary Schools and the junior 
classes of Grammar Schools and Academies — in a separate volume, at half the 
price of the whole work. 

A KEY to the above named work, designed for the use of teachers, has also 
been published. 

"The United States Arithmetic" has been adopted as a class-book in the ptibhc 
schools of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Lancaster, Camden, &c., and in very 
many highly respectable private seminaries throughout the Union. 



THE UNITED STATES PRIMARY ARITHMETIC. 

THE UNITED STATES PRIMARY ARITHMETIC. By 
Professor W. Vogdes — in press. 

RINS'S 5.000 EXERCISES IN ARITHMETIC. 

THREE THOUSAND EXERCISES IN ARITHMETIC. By 

David Ring, late Principal of the Female Public High School, Front st., Baltimore. 
Third edition, revised and corrected, with an Appendix, by AV. J. Lewis. 

A KEY to the work, for the use of teachers, has been published. 

This little book is used in the pixblic schools of Baltimore, &c., and in many pri- 
vate seminaries of respectable standing in various sections of the Urvion, and is 
adapted to use in connection with any treatise on arithmetic. 

The importance of numerous examples to insure a full understanding by the 
pupil of arithmetical rules, is generally conceded by teachers. Messrs. Jacob and 
Charles E. Abbott (the former well known as the author of those admirable books 
for children, the " Rollo," "Lucy," and "Jonas" books, &c.,) thus express their 
opinion on this subject : 

" It is generally the object, in text books on arithmetic, to give a sufficient num • 
her of problems, under each rule, to exemplify and illustrate the process, so that 
it maybe fully understood by the pupil. But experience in teaching arithmetic 
shows us that much more than this is required. It is not enough that the pupil 
understands an arithmetical process, nor that he is simply able to perform it. He 
must become thoroughly accustomed to the performance of it by means of long- 
continued practice, until the principles involved and the methods to be pursued, 
ni uU the various modifications- which may arise, become completely and perma- 
nently familiarized to the mind. It is, accordingly, found necessary in the best 
institutions to provide, in some way, a great number of examples for practice, 
after those contained in the text-books are exhausted." 



ALSOF'S ALSEBRA. 

AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON ALGEBRA, in which 

the principles of the science are familiarly explained and illustrated by numerous 
examples. Designed for the use of schools. By Samuel Alsop, Principal of 
Friends' Select School. Philadelphia. 

A portion of the work, comprising Quadratic Equations, is published separately, 
as Part First, for the use of lower classes. 

A KEY, for the use of teachers, has been published by E. C. Sc J. B. 

The above-named work has been adopted as a text-book in Miami Univeraityi 
the Central High School of Philadelphia, &c. 



E. C. & J. BIDDLE'S SCHOOL PUBLICATIONS. 

From FrofessoT John Griscom, LL. D. 

Having long been acquainted with tlie reputation of the author of this work as 
a very successful student of the higher mathematics, both of English and foreign 
authors, and a skilful and faiihfurieacher of youth, 1 have looked through his 
''Elementary Treatise on Algebra"' with no little interest. The result of the ex- 
amination is a full conviction'that none of the treatises before extant, with which 
1 have been acquainted, through a long course of teaching, is so well adapted as 
this, under the care of an intelligent master, to indoctrinate the student mto a tho- 
rough acquaintance with Algebraic Analysis, and qualify him for its application 
to Creometry and Physics. 

The care manifested in the grarfafj'ojiof his treatise, the neatness of the solutions, 
and the numerous, but choice selection of questions for practice, satisfactorily prove 
that the author is habituated to a knowledge of the wants of students, and has 
arranged his work in conformity to such experience. JOHN GRISCOM. 

BuKLLNGTOX. N. J., 10th mo. 23d. Ic46. 



VOGDES'S MENSURATION. 

AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON MENSURATION 
AND PRACTICAL GEOMETRY ; together with numerous Problems of prac- 
tical importance in Mechanics. By William Vogdes, Professor of Mathematics 
iu the Central High School of Philadelphia, author of the United States Arithmetic- 

A KEY, for the use of teachers, has been published by E. C. & J. B. 

Dear Sir — I have examined your Treatise on Mensuration, &c., and am fully 
persuaded of its excellence. The accuracy of its definitions, and the copiousness 
of its illustrations, make it admirably adapted to the wants of students in our ele- 
mentary schools. Sincerely desiring that you may be compensated tor your labour 
by its speedy introduction into our academies, &c., I remain, truly, vours, 

M. L. STOEVER, 
Prof. Vogdes. Frin. of the Acad. Dtpt. Pentia. College^ 

Messrs. Biddle — In Vogdes's Mensuration you have given us the requisite miil- 
tum inparvo. We shairintroduce it in this institution. Yours, truly, 
Hekkimer Co., N. Y., May 21, 1S17. D. WASHBURN, Frm. L. F. Acad. 



MAURY'S NAVIGATION. 

THE TEXT-BOOK OF THE V. S. NAVY. 

AN ELEMENTARY, PRACTICAL, AND THEORETICAL 
TREATISE ON NAVIGATION. By M. F. Maury, Lieut. U. S. Navy. Third 
edition, much enlarged and improved. 

Geyieral Order, Navi/ Department. 

ISIaury's Navigation is hereby adopted as the text-book of the Navy. Midship- 
men are therefore required to make themselves acquainted with at least so much 
of Mathematics, Nautical Astronomy, and the other kindred branches of Naviga- 
tion as is therein contained. 

Professors of Mathematics and Boards for the examination of Midshipmen are 
charged with the execution of this order. (Signed ) J. Y. MASON. 

The above named work has also been adopted as a text-book in the Central 
Public High School of Philadelphia, the High School of Baltimore, &c. 



eUMMERE'S ASTRONOMY. 

AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON ASTRONOMY. In 
two Parts — the first containing a clear and compendious view of the Theory; tha 
second, a number of Practical Problems. To which are added Solar. Lunar, and 
other Astronomical Tables. By John Gumraere, A.M., Member of the Am. Phil. 
Soc, author of a Treatise on Surveying, &c., &c. Third edition, improved. 
I The work is used as a text-book "in the University of Pennsylvania, Wesleyan 
University, Union College. Central High School of Philadelphia, &;c. 

From Professor A. D. Bache, LL. D.. Superintendent of U. S. Coast Survey. 

The undersigned having: used the second edition of Gummere's Astronomy as 
a text-book in the University of Pennsylvania for several years, and the third 
edition for a year, when last connected with the University, has had a good op- 
portunity to judge of its merits, and recommends it strongly lor its clear style and 
perspicuous arrangement. The Appendix to the third edition contains matter of 
the highest interest to the practical astronomer as well as to the student. 

A. D. BACHE, LaU Prof, of Nat. Philos. Univer. of Pa 



E. C. & J. BIDDLE^S SCHOOL PUBLICATIONS. 

CRITTENDENS' DOUBLE ENTRY BDOK-KEEPINrT. 

AN INDUCTIVE AND PRACTICAL SYSTEM OF DOU- 
BLE ENTRY BOOK-KEEPING, on an entirely new plan ; having a general 
rule, deduced from the definition of Debtor and Creditor, applied to the Journaliz- 
ing of all Transactions ; containing Twelve Sets of Books for imparting a General 
Knowledge of the Science, with numerous and various Entries, and illustrating 
Single and Partnership Business, both prosperous and adverse; also, Approved 
Forms of Auxiliary Books — A Vocabulary of Commercial Terms — Practical 
Forms for Keeping Books in different Branches of Business — Commercial Calcu- 
lations — A Table of Foreign Coins, and Moneys of Account, &c. Designed for 
the use of Private Students, Schools, and Practical Accountants. By A. F. & S. 
W. Crittenden, Accountants, of Philadelphia. 

The above-named work has been examined by, and received the approval of 
many of the best practical book-keepers in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, 
Baltimore, Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, New Orleans, Natchez, 
Vicksburg. Memphis, St. Louis, Nashville, Louisville, Cincinnati, Wheeling, 
Pittsburg, Buffalo, &c. 

That portion of the work especially adapted to impart to juvenile pupils a know- 
ledge of the science of which it treats, is published as a School Edition. 



THE NEW AMERICAN SPEAKER. 

BEING A SELECTION OF SPEECHES, DIALOGUES, 
AND POETRY, for the Use of SchooLs. By Thomas Hughes. 



ETYMOLOGICAL CLASS-BOOKS. 

1. LYND'S FIRST BOOK OF ETYMOLOGY. 

2. LYND'S CLASS-BOOK OF ETYMOLOGY. 

3. OSWALD'S ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY AND KEY. 

Designed to promote precision in the use, and facilitate the acquisition of a know- 
ledge of the English language. 

The above named works are used as text-books in the public schools of the 
city and county of Philadelphia. 

From Professor J. S. Hart, Principal of the Philadelphia Central High School. 

Gentlemen — I have examined, with unusual satisfaction, the First Book and 
Class-Book of Etymology, by Mr. James Lynd. These books, both in their plan 
and execution, give evidence of having been prepared by one practically ac- 
quainted with the difficulties of the subject and able successfully to meet them. I 
have long considered the study as one of primary importance, and I am free to 
say that I think Mr. Lynd's work the greatest advance that has yet been mads 
towards a practical and efficient method of teaching it. The conviction has been 
for some time gaining ground, that the study of the analysis of words into their 
elements, of the meaning of these elements and the method of combining them — in 
other words, the study of Etymology — is essential, especially to the mere English 
scholar, to a proper and intelligent comprehension of the language. These exer- 
cises, also, like all rational exercises connected with the study of language, have 
been found to be one of the most efficient means of disciplining the youthful mind. 
But hitherto serious difficulties have been experienced from the want of text- 
books precisely adapted to the necessities of English scholars; and many teachers 
have omitted what they believed to be an important branch of primary instruc- 
tion, because no method of teaching it had been presented that seemed sufficiently 
practical. Mr. Lynd's books, I think, will go far to remove this difficulty. They 
are evidently prepared with care, with reference to the wants of scholars rather 
than the display of erudition ; and on a plan that can hardly fail to commend itself 
at sight to the experienced teacher. Yours, respectfully, JOHN S. HART. 

Philadelphia, June 15, 1S47. 

From Professor C. D. Cleveland, author of ''■Latin Lessons,'''' "Latin Gramma.r,^'' See. 
Gentlemen — In republishing " Oswald's Etymological Dictionary," enriched ac 
it is by the sensible and well-written "Introduction" of Dr. Keagy, youhave done 
a real service to the cause oi sound education. It is the best work of the kind (de- 
signed for schools) that I have yet seen, and it must have an extensive circula- 
tion ; for in every well-regulated school, taught by competent masters, Etymology 
will form a prominent branch of study as long as there is an inseparable connec- 
tion between clearness of thought and a correct use oflanguage. 

Yoursj respectfully, C. D. CLEVELAND. 



E. C. & J. EIDDLE^S SCHOOL PUBLICATIONS. 
CLEVELAND'S COMPENDIUM OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

A COMPENDIUM OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, with Bio- 
grapliical and Critical Notes, by C. D. Cleveland, author of "Latin Lessons, "La- 
tin Grammar," &c. 



TREGO'S GEOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

A GEOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA, contaiuing an Ac- 
count of the History. Geographical Features, Soil, Climate, Geology, Botany, 
Zooloffy. Population. Education, Government, Finances. Productions, Trade, 
Railroads. Canals. &c.. of the State; with a separate Description of each County^ 
and Questions for the convenience of Teachers. By Charles B. Trego, late As- 
sistant State Geologist, &c., &c. Illustrated by a Map of the State and numerous 
engravings. 



OUTLINES OF SACRED HISTORY, 

From the Creation of the World to the Destruction of Jerusalem. 
With Questions for Examination. Intended for the use of Schools and Families. 
New edition, enlarged and improved. Illustrated with 34 engravings on wood. 

Published in London, under the direction of the Committee of General Literature 
and Education, appointed by the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge. 

The above-named work is used as a class-book in the Academical D partmeut 
of the University of Pennsylvania. 

JExtract from the last Anjiual Report of the late Superintendent of Common Schools of 
the city and county of New York — Col. W?n. L. Stone. 

" But there are several other books wanted in those schools, (under the care of 
the Public School Society,) among which is a good compend of Sacred History.* * 
The officers of the district schools of the fourteenth ward have adopted, 'Oatlines 
of Sacred History' — an abridgement of great excellence." 



JOHNSON'S MOFFAT'S NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 

A SYSTEM OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, designed for the 
use of Schools and Academies, on the basis of Mr. J. M. Morfat; comprising Me- 
chanics, Hydrostatics, Hydraulics, Pneumatics, Acoustics, Pyronomics, Optics, 
Electricit)', Galvanism, and ISlagnetisra; with Emendations, Notes, Questions for 
Examination, &c., &c. By Prof W. R. Johnson. 

The title of this work has been changed from " Scientific Class-Book, Part I." 



JOHNSON'S MOFFAT'S CHEMISTRY. 

AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON CHE3IISTRY, together 
with Treatises on Metallurgy. Mineralogy-, Crystallography. Geolog\', Oryctolog}-, 
and Meteorology", designed for the use of Schools and Academies: on the basis 
of Mr. J. M. Moffat; with Additions, Emendations, Notes, References, Questions 
for Examination, &c., &c. By Prof W. R. Johnson. 
The title of this work has been changed from " Scientific Class-Book, Part II." 
The above-named works by Prof Johnson are used as text-books in many Col- 
leges, Academies, and High Schools of respectable standing in various sections 
of the Union, 



FRENCH LESSONS FOR BEGINNERS. 

L'ABEILLE POUR LES ENFANS. OU LECONS FRAN- 

CAISES. lere Partie, al'usage des ecoles. 

This work, as its name imports, is designed for the First Reading-book. The 
style is simple, the sentences short, and containing few idioms, inversions, or dif- 
ficulties. At the end of each page is a translation of the idiomatic expressions it 
contains, and of the words used in an acceptation not given in the dictionary, 
The work has been compiled with special reference to moral tendency. 



E. C. & J. BIDDLE'S SCHOOL PUBLICATIONS. 
MANUAL OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE. 

FOURTH EDITIOiSr — NINTH THOUSAND, 

MANUAL OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE, from the German 
of John J. Eschenburg. With Additions by Professor Fiske, of Amherst College. 
The work comprises five parts :— 1. Classical Geography and Chronology. '2. 
Mythology of the Greeks and Romans. 3. Greek and Roman Antiquities. 4. 
Archaeology of Greek and Roman Literature and Art. 5. History of Ancieni 
liiterature, Greek and Roman. Fourth edition, much enlarged and improved; 
illustrated by twenty finely executed copper-plates, and by wood-cuts represent- 
ing more than four hundred different objects. In addition to these illustrations, 
thirty -two finely executed copper-plate engravings, referred to in the Manual, are 
bound as a Supplemental Volume. 

The Manual has been placed among the text-books in many of the colleges of 
the United States, e. g., Harvard, Wesleyan, and iMiami Universities ; Universi- 
ties of Pennsylvania and Alabama; Union, Rutger's, Amherst, Middlebury, Dan- 
mouth, Bowdoin, W. Reserve, Marietta, Lafayette, and Hamilton colleges, &c. 



FISKE'S CLASSICAL ANTIQUITIES. 

This work, which is designed for iise in High Schools and Academies, comprises 
the first three parts of the "Manual of Classical Literature." It is an 8vo volume 
of about 350 pages, and embraces five distinct treatises : — 1. Classical Geography 
and Topography ; 2. Classical Chronology ; 3. Greek and Roman Mythology ; 4. 
Greek Antiquities; 5. Roman Antiquities. With copper-plate and wood engrav- 
ings, illustrating more than 300 objects. Its price is one-half that of the ' Manual.' 



PEALE'S GRAPHICS. 

GRAPHICS, THE ART OF ACCURATE DELINEATION. 

A System of School Exercise for the education of the eye, and the training of the 
hand, as auxiliary to Writing, Geography, and Drawing. With an Introduction 
for the use of Teachers, explanatory of the first Education of the Eye. especially 
calculated for Primary Schools and young beginners. By R. Peale. late Profes- 
sor of Graphics in the High School of Philadelphia. 

In use in the public schools of Philadelphia, in Rutger's Female Institute, N. Y., 
and in many other seminaries of high repute in various parts of the Union. 



CONTROLLERS' COPY-SLIPS. 

These Copy-Slips are of the old-fashioned round style of writing, as opposed to 
the Carstairian or angular style ; and consist of four sets, viz.. Large Text-hand, 
Text-hand, Round-hand, and Introduction to Running-hand ; each set containing 
24 to 26 slips, or sentences, commencing with different letters of the alphabet. 
These sets or alphabets are stitched in book-form, or pasted on separate shps of 
binder's board. In this latter form they are used in the public schools of Phila- 
delphia, where its economy has been satisfactorily tested. 



DRAWING-BOOK OF FLOWERS AND FRUIT. 

DRAWING-BOOK OF FLOWERS AND FRUIT; with benu- 
lifully coloured illustrations. Designed lor the use of schools, private pupils, and 
amateurs. By Mrs. Anne Hill. 

"We have never seen any thing of the kind, of American production, that could 
be at all compared with it, and cannot well imagine how the weahh and experieiu;<i 
of Europe could produce a more excellent book of instruction, for the use of semi- 
naries, private pupils, and amateurs. The designs and colouring appear faultless. 
The mechanical portions have been confided to master hands, and the very first 
artists in the country have warmly commended the whole work."— -S'a?. Courier. 



PROGRESSIVE LESSONS IN THE PAINTING OF FLOWERS AND FRUIT. 

BY MRS. A.MVE HILL. 

The series consists of six sheets, each containing four studies, beautifully 

coloured and gradually increasing in difficulty of execution. The price of the sel 

is $1.50 : of the numbers separately, Nos. 1 and 2, each 25 cents ; No?. 3 and 4, 

each 31t cents, and Nos, 5 and 6, each 371 cents. 



E. C. & J. BIDDLE'S SCHOOL PUBLICATIONS. 

M'MURTRIE'S SCIENIinC LEXICON. 

A TEXT BOOK i:\ THE CEN'TKAL HIGH SCHOOL OF PHILADELPHIA. 

LEXICON SCIEXTIARUM. A DICTIONARY OF TERMS 

used in the various branches of Anatomy, Astronomy. Botany, Geology, Geo- 
metry, Hygiene, Mineralogy", Natural Philosophy. Physiology'. Zoology, &c. By 
Henry McMurtrie, M. D.,^etc.. Professor of Anatomy, Physiology, and Natural 
History, in the Central High Scnooi of Philadelphia. 

From Samuel George Morion, M. D., Vice-President of the Academy of Natural 
Sciences, of Philadelphia; formerly President of the Association of American Geologists 
and Naturalists ; author of '• Crania A}7iericana,'' " Crania Egyptica" Sfc. S^c. 

I have examined Dr. M'Murtrie's Dictionary of Scientific Terms, and believe it 
to be admirably adapted to the explanation of the numerous technicalities that 
are inseparably connected with every department of Science. Such a glossary- 
is indeed indispensable to the learner, who by its aid will find every step facili- 
tated and much lime saved. ' SAMUEL GEORGE MORTON. 

Philadelphia, October 27, 1S47. 

From M, H. BoyS, Professor of Chemistry in the Central High School, PkUadel' 
phia, ^-c. 

Laboratory, at Old Mint, 
Philadelphia, October 19, 1847 
I have been much pleased with Dr. M'Murtrie's Scientific Dictionary. Such a 
w^ork has been long needed to enable the student to acquire a correct knowledge 
cf the derivation and meaning of the various scientific terms: It will al.so be 
found very convenient to more advanced scholars, as a book of reference. I 
therefore take great pleasure in recommending it to the public in general. 

M. H. BOYE. 



E. C. &, J. BIDDLE'S 

MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATIONS. 



AIKIN, J. B.— THE CHRISTIAN MINSTREL. A New System 

of Musical Notation ; with a colleciion of Psalm Tunca, Anthems, and Chants, selected 
from I he most popular works in Europe and America. Designed for the use of Church- 
es, Singing-Sciiools, and Societies. Half roan. 

ALECK, the Last of the Mutineers; or the History of Pitcairn's Island. 
With illustrations. Second edition. Muslin, gilt. 

BOOK OF HOMILIES: with an Appendix, containing the Articles 
of Keligion, Constitution, and Canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Uni- 
ted States. Sheep, library style ; or muslin. 

CHRISTIAN LIBRARY. 2 vols. Imp. 8vo. Mor. backs and corners. 

COMMON SCHOOL JOURNAL OF THE STATE OF PENN 

SYLVANIA. Vol. I., for the year 1&44. 8vo. Sheep. 

DICK, THOMAS. — WORKS OF. 8 vols., muslin or sheep; or in 

4 vols, sheep, library style, or half muslin. 

PHILOSOPHY OF A FUTURE STATE. Muslin or sheep. 

PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. Muslin or sheep. 

CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. Muslin, gilt; or sheep. 

ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF SOCIETY. Muslin or sheep. 

ESSAY ON COVETOUSNESS. Muslin or sheep. 

ON THE MENTAL ILLUMINATION AND MORAL IM- 

PROVEMENT OF MANKIND. Muslin or sheep. 
CELESTIAL SCENERY. Muslin, gilt; or sheep. 
SIDEREAL HEAVENS. Muslin, gilt; or sheep. 
DUNLAP, JAMES D.— BOOK OF FORMS: containing more than 

600 of the most approved Precedents for Conveyancing, and for Practice in the Courts 

of Pennsylvania and in Admiralty Courts ; also for use in Public Offices, and for Men 

of Businesss generally. 8vo., law sheep. 

FOSTER, JOHN.— AN ADDRESS TO THE Y'OUNG ON THE 

IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION. 32mo., muslin. 

HALL, REV. ROBERT.— BEAUTIES OF. ISmo., muslin. 

HOME BOOK OF HEALTH AND MEDICINE. By a Philadel- 
phia Physician. 8vo., sheep, gilt. 

HOOKER, REV. HERMAN, A. M. — FAMILY BOOK OF DE- 
VOTION. 8vo., light sheep. 

McKENNEY AND HALL. — HISTORY OF THE INDIAN 

TRIBES OF NORTH AMERICA, with Biographical Sketches and Anecdotes of the 
Principal chiefs; embellished with 120 Portraits, from the Indian Gallery in the Depart- 
ment of War, at Washington. By Thomas L. McKenney, late of the Indian Depart- 
ment, Washington, and James Hall, Esq., of Cincinnati. Folio, in 20 numbers, paper 
covers, or in 3 vols, half Turkey inorocco. 

PASTORAL LETTERS, from the House of Bishops to the Members 

of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Unitnd States of America. 12mo.. mus. gilt. 

LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE: revised 
with special reference to moral tendency, and adapted to the capacity of the young. 
With more than one hundred illustrations. Cloth gilt. 

SIGOURNEY, MRS. L. H. — SELECT POEMS. Fifth edition, 

illustrated with seven fine steel engravings. i2mo., half Turkey morocco extra, silk, 
or Turkey morocco super extra. 

SLEIGH, W. W.— CHRISTIAN'S DEFENSIVE DICTIONARY. 

Being an alphabetical refutation of the general objections to the Sacred Scriptures. 
]2mo., muslin. 

SPEECHES OF PATRICK HENRY, FISHER AMES, WILLIAM 

PINCKNEY, and numerous other distinguished American Orators. 1 vol. Bvo., sheep, 
edge rolled. 

SPEECHES OF PHILLIPS, CURRAN, GRATTAN, AND EM- 

METT. 1 vol. Bvo.. sheep, edge rolled. 

SPEECHES OF CHATHAM, BURKE, AND ERSKINE ; to which 

are added the Arguments of Mr. Mackintosh in the case of Peltier; selected by a 
member of the Philadelphia Bar. 1 vol. Bvo., sheep, edge rolled, 

SELECT SPEECHES OF HUSKISSON AND WINDHAM. 

Edited by Robert Walsh. Esq. With a biographical and critical introduction by the 
editor. 1 vol. Bvo., sheep, edge rolled. 
JtS^I'he above four volumes of Speeches are published under the title LIBRARY OP 
ORATORY, in half muslin binding. 

TAYLOR, THOMAS.— LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. 12mo., 

half muslin. 
18 



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